The life of Mehmed the Conqueror is usually told around the conquest of Constantinople. His connection with Amasya, however, is one of those points in his biography where documented fact and tradition have to be most clearly separated. The story that the sultan served as sanjak governor of Amasya in childhood lives on in local tradition, but an authority such as Halil İnalcık regards the claim as doubtful. By contrast, the sources do record his brothers' service in Amasya, the twenty-seven years his son Bayezid spent there as governor, and his own month-long stay in the city on the return from Otlukbeli.

Birth and Family

Mehmed II was born in Edirne on 27 Rajab 835 (30 March 1432). Some sources place his birth at dawn on a Sunday. His father was Murad II, the sixth Ottoman sultan, and his mother was Hüma Hatun. Researchers such as Franz Babinger and Halil İnalcık accept that Hüma Hatun was a non-Muslim concubine; according to Babinger, the name "Hüma" was given to her only after her death, inspired by the state-bird of Turco-Persian legend. Hüma Hatun died in August or September 1449 and never saw her son's reign.

Mehmed was Murad II's fourth son. This ordering matters for understanding the story, because at his birth the throne was a remote prospect for him. His elder brothers Ahmed and Alâeddin Ali were alive, and both would die young, opening the way to Mehmed.

The Amasya Question: Fact or Tradition?

In Amasya's memory as a "city of princes" a place has also been set aside for the Conqueror, but it rests on no firm source. Local tradition holds that when Prince Ahmed, sanjak governor of Amasya, died in 1438, Murad II's fourth son Mehmed was appointed to the post. In his article "Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri" (The City of Amasya in the Era of the Princes Who Served as Sanjak Governors in Amasya), Selim Özcan relays this account on the basis of Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar's Amasya Tarihi (vol. III, p. 131). The article contains a noticeable inconsistency: since Mehmed was born in 1432, he was six in 1438, yet the article says "eight years old". Özcan also notes that İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, in his study "Sancağa Çıkarılan Osmanlı Şehzadeleri" (Ottoman Princes Sent to Sanjaks), does not mention Mehmed serving as sanjak governor of Amasya after Prince Ahmed.

The accounts do not agree with one another, either. One says Mehmed stayed in Edirne until the age of two, was sent in 1434 together with his wet nurse and Alâeddin Ali to Ahmed, the sanjak governor of Rûm (Amasya), became sanjak governor of Rûm at six after Ahmed's death, and two years later exchanged posts with Alâeddin Ali in Manisa. Another account says that Mehmed was sent to Amasya at eleven with two lalas. At this point İnalcık's finding is decisive: "The claim that he was appointed governor of Amasya at the age of six is doubtful; it is known that in the spring of 1443 he was sent from Edirne to Manisa as governor with his two lalas, Kassabzâde Mahmud and the chancellor İbrâhim b. Abdullah Bey." The first documented posting is therefore Manisa.

There is one more tradition, drawing on Hammer and Muzaffer Doğanbaş. According to it, Murad II's three sons in Amasya once visited Sheikh Abdurrahman, son-in-law of the Halveti sheikh Pir İlyas. The sheikh let two of the princes kiss his hand, but knelt before Mehmed and begged him to devote all his strength and genius to the glory and happiness of the state that God would ordain for him. The article infers from this tale that Mehmed was in Amasya, but since it rests on no contemporary document it must be called a tradition.

The prudent line is therefore this: that the Conqueror was sanjak governor of Amasya is not certain, and İnalcık's doubt should be taken seriously. Equally, there is no basis for saying that he never saw the city in his childhood. The documented traces of the Conqueror in Amasya are to be sought in his brothers, in his son Bayezid's governorship, and in the stay on his return from Otlukbeli.

The Elder Brothers in Amasya: Ahmed and Alâeddin Ali

Ahmed Çelebi, Murad II's eldest prince, was born in Amasya in 1420. After Yörgüç Pasha was sent to Edirne as its warden in 1435, he became sanjak governor of Amasya, held the post for about three years, and died in Amasya in 1438. The same article states that after him, in 1440, the fifteen-year-old Prince Alâeddin Ali was appointed to the sanjak. At his father's instruction he took part with his sipahis in the 1443 war against the Karamanids, and he died on returning from the campaign to the sanjak of Amasya; this information rests on Hoca Sadeddin's Tâcü't-tevârih. İnalcık places his death late in the same year and states the consequence plainly: with Alâeddin Ali's death Mehmed became "the sole heir to the throne".

The Conqueror's two brothers had thus served as sanjak governors of Amasya, and both had died there. The infant half-brother whom the Conqueror had strangled at his accession was also named Ahmed; he must not be confused with the Ahmed who was sanjak governor of Amasya.

Sent to Manisa, and His Education

In the spring of 1443 the eleven-year-old Mehmed was sent with two lalas to Manisa, to the sanjak of Saruhan. It is also said that he was the first prince sent to Manisa, though no contemporary document is cited for this claim. Sending a prince to a sanjak was an Ottoman custom meant to teach a young member of the dynasty how to govern, and the lalas at his side guided him.

The sources give detailed information about his education. Specialists were appointed as tutors to teach various sciences, and they came each day at a set hour to give lessons. Among his teachers are listed Hocazâde Muslihuddin, Molla Gürânî, Molla İlyas, Sirâceddin Halebî, Molla Abdülkādir, Hasan Samsunî and Molla Hayreddin; the same source records that Akşemseddin at first had great influence on him. There is no doubt that he was versed in Arabic and Persian, and the court circle also gave him the chance to learn Greek and Slavic. Because he was as intelligent as he was headstrong a child, his father is said to have appointed Molla Gürânî, an imposing and authoritative scholar. According to the tale, Murad gave Gürânî a rod and told him to use it if Mehmed disobeyed. This is more story than document, but it indicates that the prince's schooling was not easy.

A sketchbook from his princely years is said to be preserved in the Topkapı Palace archive. Containing floral motifs, drawings of horses' heads and birds, Turkish and Greek alphabets, drawings of tughras and Persian couplets, it offers a cross-section of the young prince's world. At the palace in Manisa, the Italian humanist Cyriacus of Ancona and other Italians are said to have had books read to him on European history and the lives of the ancient Greek philosophers. The Conqueror's first contact with Western culture thus reaches back to his princely years.

The Brief First Reign (1444-1446)

When peace was signed in Edirne on 12 June 1444 with the envoys of the Hungarian king, the Serbian despot and János Hunyadi, Mehmed was present. Murad II then seated his son on the throne, left him as deputy, and crossed to Anatolia; in July he made an agreement with the Karamanid ruler at Yenişehir. In August, on the plain of Mihaliç, he announced before the kapıkulu troops and the pashas that he was formally handing the throne to his son, and withdrew into seclusion with ascetics near Bursa. Mehmed was twelve years old.

With the state in the hands of an inexperienced youth, internal and external crises followed one another. The lands his father had taken in the Balkans and Anatolia had been abandoned: the Serbian despotate, fully conquered in 1440, had been returned to its former master Đurađ Branković, the ties of the Wallachian prince had loosened, and Beyşehir, Akşehir and Seydişehir had been left to the Karamanid ruler. In Edirne the rivalry among the pashas was at its height. Murad's grand vizier Çandarlı Halil Pasha favoured a cautious policy of peace; Şehâbeddin Şahin, beylerbey of Rumelia, the prince's lala the chancellor İbrâhim, and Zağanos Pasha gathered around the youth and wished to wrest power from Çandarlı. On 22 September 1444 a bloody Hurufi uprising broke out in Edirne, and a great fire ravaged the city. Orhan Çelebi, an Ottoman prince in Byzantine hands, also set out from Constantinople with an eye on the throne in these circumstances.

The crusader army crossed the Danube between 18 and 22 September. Çandarlı and his supporters saw no alternative but to bring Murad back, and at the insistence of Kassabzâde Mahmud, who was sent to Bursa, Murad abandoned his seclusion. The crusader army was defeated at Varna on 10 November 1444. Zağanos and Şehâbeddin had wished to take Mehmed to the battle; Halil Pasha prevented this and treated Murad as the true sultan. After Varna Murad did not remove his son from the throne; he stayed a few days in Edirne and withdrew to Manisa.

The new policy had also given birth to a new idea. During these years, especially under Zağanos's influence, Mehmed began to regard the conquest of Constantinople as the first requirement of his sultanate, and saw Çandarlı as the chief obstacle. Çandarlı Halil, relying on the Janissaries, stepped up his efforts to return Murad to the throne. A great Janissary revolt broke out in Edirne and Şehâbeddin Pasha's mansion was plundered. In 1446 (setting out on 5 May and reaching Edirne in August) Murad regained the throne with the help of the Janissaries. Mehmed was sent to Manisa, and the pashas Zağanos and Şehâbeddin were given to him as atabeys. İnalcık notes that these two years must have made a strong impression on his character: the ideas of breaking Çandarlı's power, bringing the Janissaries to heel, pursuing an energetic policy of ghaza and conquering Constantinople may have settled in his mind then.

The Manisa Years (1446-1451)

From 1446 to 1451 Mehmed was in Manisa again. He was officially styled "Mehmed Çelebi Sultan"; the fact that he had once been sultan made his position different from that of an ordinary prince. The raids against the Venetian islands in the Aegean between 1446 and 1449 were launched from regions under his control. It is said that in 1448/49 he had coins struck in his own name at Selçuk, an act that would normally have had grave consequences for a prince, but that Murad did not intervene. This lack of intervention is attributed to the fact that Mehmed was then Murad's only son; that is, it is an interpretation.

In these years he also gained his first experience of war. Murad summoned him from Manisa on the campaign against the rebel Skanderbeg (1448). At the Second Battle of Kosovo against Hunyadi, "Han Mehmed" fought on the right wing, in the words of the sources. In 1450 he took part in Murad's second Albanian campaign, the unsuccessful siege of Akçahisar (Kruja).

His family life also belongs to these years. In Manisa Mehmed married Gülbahar Hatun, a concubine of Albanian or Serbian origin, and at the end of 1447 or the beginning of 1448 their son Bayezid, the later Bayezid II, was born. Murad did not approve of this union, and in 1450 married Mehmed to Sitti Mükrime Hatun, daughter of the Dulkadirid ruler Süleyman Bey. The wedding is described as a magnificent one held in Edirne to dispel the effect of the failure at Akçahisar (November-December 1450).

The Second Accession (1451)

Murad II died on 3 February 1451. Mehmed learned of his father's death from a secret letter Çandarlı Halil sent to Manisa and, as the story goes, shouting "Let those who love me follow me!" he leapt onto his horse and set out northward. By the time he reached Gallipoli, the Janissaries in Edirne had revolted; Çandarlı Halil sent troops, brought the situation under control, and promised a donative in the name of the new sultan. On 18 February 1451, at nineteen, Mehmed ascended the Ottoman throne for the second time. The five years in Manisa had matured him.

Among his first acts on accession was to have his father's infant son Ahmed, borne by the daughter of the Candaroğlu ruler, strangled. İnalcık relays it thus: in laying down the ruling that "it is lawful to kill one's brothers for the order of the world" he had in mind securing the indivisibility of sovereignty and sparing the state the danger of future claimants to the throne. This ruling became the legal background of the princely struggles of later centuries, and of the dramas played out in princely sanjaks such as Amasya.

In the first years of his reign he appeared cautious. He renewed his father's treaties with the Serbs and Byzantines, confirmed the old agreement with Venice, and kept Çandarlı as grand vizier. Real power, however, had passed to the war party headed by Zağanos and Şehâbeddin. When the Karamanid ruler İbrâhim Bey rose in revolt and seized Seydişehir and Akşehir, he crossed into Anatolia in the summer of 1451 and secured peace by leaving the fortress of Alaiyye to the Karamanid. On the return, when the Janissaries demanded a bonus, he dismissed the Janissary agha Kurtçu Doğan and reorganised the corps.

The Conquest of Constantinople (1453)

In the spring of 1452 construction of a new fortress began opposite Anadoluhisarı. In February 1452 the first tower rose on the shore, and at the end of August Rumeli Hisarı, called Boğazkesen ("Strait-Cutter"), was completed. The fortress would cut Constantinople off from provisions coming from the Black Sea and secure the crossing between Anatolia and Rumelia. The envoys of the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI were not received, which meant a declaration of war. A Venetian ship that tried to pass the fortress without permission was sunk by cannon fire. The cannon cast by Urban, a gun-founder of Hungarian origin, also came into play in this process.

The idea of conquest did not find easy acceptance at court. A great consultative council was convened in Edirne, and the discussions are reported in two independent sources (Tâcîzâde Cafer Çelebi and Kritovoulos). The sultan dwelt on the tradition of ghaza and on the points at which Constantinople threatened Ottoman security; the decision was received with enthusiasm by the war party, while the cautious faction, which stressed the strength of the walls, had to follow the majority in the face of the sultan's insistence. Çandarlı Halil did all he could to keep the undertaking from being launched, because he knew that after the conquest all his power would slip from his hands.

The army set out from Edirne on 23 March 1453, reached Constantinople on 2 April, and on the same day the entrance of the Golden Horn was closed with a chain. The siege, which began on 6 April 1453, ended on 29 May 1453. The length of the siege is given in some sources as fifty-three days, in others as fifty-four, in others as fifty-seven; the difference depends on which day the count begins. The sources also give a wide range for the size of the Ottoman army: for the regular army at least fifty thousand is said, while another estimate gives a range between eighty thousand and two hundred thousand. The defending force is put at 8,000 to 9,000 in all, of whom about three thousand were Latins. Giovanni Giustiniani Longo of Genoa had taken command, and a Genoese force of about seven hundred men that came to help had reached the city on 26 January 1453.

On 20 April three Genoese ships sent by the Pope and a Greek transport, helped by a strong southwesterly wind, slipped past the Ottoman fleet and entered the Golden Horn; this was an event that broke the army's morale. Mehmed's answer came on the morning of 22 April: planks were laid along the route from Dolmabahçe to Kasımpaşa, and ships were hauled overland on rollers and launched into the Golden Horn. This is traditionally described as about eighty ships; the number varies by source. In the seventh week of the siege there was still no decisive result. News that the Hungarians and a crusader fleet were on the move spread through the army, and the wrangling between Çandarlı Halil and the war party flared up again at a last council of war. The decision for a general assault was taken and the choice of day was left to Zağanos Pasha.

In the first hours of 29 May the assault came in three waves: first the irregulars, then the Anatolian troops, and last the Janissaries. Giustiniani's wounding and his abandonment of command crushed the defenders' morale. Both Ottoman and Byzantine sources record the cannon's destruction of the walls, the discord between Greeks and Latins, and Giustiniani's wounding as the chief events that influenced the outcome. First, near Edirnekapı, five or ten ghazis climbed the wall and planted a banner; the main army entered the city through the breaches opened between Topkapı and Yalıkapı. Emperor Constantine died in the fighting, but no witness to his death is known, and the fate of his body is disputed in the sources.

Mehmed entered the city in the afternoon, went to Hagia Sophia and prayed; he is said to have declared, "From now on my throne is Istanbul." Since the city had been taken by force, it was open to plunder. Three days of plunder were permitted, but because a state of war was declared over on 30 May, the plunder lasted less than two days. The surviving inhabitants were taken captive, and since Mehmed did not want the city to lie in ruins he tried to restore order quickly. He treated Grand Duke Loukas Notaras and other Byzantine nobles, who had opposed union with the Latin church, well at first; he ransomed captives and had them brought to him, and since he did not want the city empty he permitted Greeks who paid their ransom or returned within a set time to settle in the city. Galata was taken over from the Genoese on 1 June.

After the Conquest: A New Capital, a New Power

His first task after the conquest was to remove Çandarlı Halil Pasha, who in practice limited his power, and Orhan Çelebi, who had threatened his throne. Orhan Çelebi was caught trying to flee the city disguised as a monk and was executed. Çandarlı Halil was dismissed on 1 June 1453, his property confiscated, and he was imprisoned at Yedikule and executed on 10 July 1453. Some sources allege bribery and secret relations with Byzantium; no evidence relating to these has been found. Çandarlı was the first Ottoman grand vizier to be executed, and his property was returned to his children in the reign of Bayezid II.

Of the grand viziers he appointed after Çandarlı, all but the last, Karamânî Mehmed Pasha, were of kul origin; he had Mahmud Pasha and Rum Mehmed Pasha executed. The influence of the old families in the running of the state was thus broken. He reorganised the kapıkulu army, which was bound directly to his person, raised the Janissaries' pay, renewed their arms and doubled their numbers; from the palace hunting companies he formed new Janissary units under the name sekban. As sultan he also withdrew progressively from the people, ceasing to attend the divan meetings and reducing his contact with them.

He rebuilt and repopulated Istanbul. At the time of the conquest the city's population is estimated at between 30,000 and 40,000. The method of forced resettlement was applied widely, with compulsory transfers from the regions of Konya, Karaman and Aksaray; this practice caused new problems especially in Anatolia. According to the survey of 1477-78, Istanbul and Galata together had 16,324 households, 3,927 shops and an estimated population of 80,000.

He set up a new order for the religious communities. In 1454 Georgios Scholarios, that is Gennadios, became Greek Orthodox patriarch, the office of chief rabbi was established (Moses Capsali), and in 1461 Hovagim, the bishop of Bursa, was appointed Armenian patriarch. He himself also adopted the title "Kayser-i Rûm" (Caesar of Rome). İnalcık interprets these claims with caution: the idea of a Roman empire was for him a political tool, but it is wrong to regard the Conqueror's empire as "Eastern Rome revived under an Islamic guise", and the thesis that Byzantine institutions were imitated is exaggerated. The sources of the Conqueror's idea of world dominion were Turco-Mongol khanship, the Islamic caliphate and the Roman imperial idea; it is also known that he had his Italian companions read him Roman histories in an effort to grasp this tradition.

Serbia, the Morea and the Black Sea Coasts (1454-1461)

Serbia. After the conquest of Constantinople a treaty was signed with Venice on 18 April 1454 and the Genoese colonies were made tributary. Mehmed's first great objective was Serbia. In the summer of 1454 a first campaign was made in the Morava valley; in the second campaign of 1455 Vučitrn, Trepča, Novo Brdo and the silver mines of the Lab valley were taken. In 1456 he besieged Belgrade, and in spite of his personal heroism withdrew before Hunyadi's relief forces, being wounded in the forehead in the process. The failure of Belgrade to fall raised crusader hopes in the West. After the death of Despot Đurađ Branković and then of his son Lazar (January 1458), the question of the Serbian succession arose. Mehmed marched on Smederevo in the spring of 1459, and the Serbs handed over the keys of the fortress in June 1459; Serbia came under direct Ottoman rule. That summer Amasra on the Black Sea was taken, and the Genoese fortress surrendered without a fight.

The Morea. The quarrel between the Morean despots Demetrios and Thomas had thrown the country into confusion. Mehmed moved in 1458 and took Corinth; in the campaign of 1460 he seized the whole peninsula except the Venetian fortresses on the coast. Mistra fell on 29 May 1460, exactly seven years after the conquest of Constantinople. In 1458 Mehmed visited Athens, toured the Acropolis and paid compliments to the Athenians.

Sinop and Trebizond (1461). Sheikh Junayd's attempt to take Trebizond had come to nothing in 1456. In 1461 Mehmed set out from Bursa, took Sinop and besieged Trebizond. Emperor David surrendered the city on 15 August 1461 (it is also written that the siege lasted four to six weeks and that the date of surrender was August or September; most sources say 15 August). The Empire of Trebizond, which had lasted 257 years, thus came to an end. Mehmed left the administration of the city to Kasım Bey, sanjak governor of Gallipoli. This conquest also threatened the sphere of influence of the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan.

Wallachia, Lesbos, Bosnia and Albania (1462-1479)

Wallachia (1462). Vlad III, voivode of Wallachia (Vlad the Impaler), had allied with the Hungarian king and, taking advantage of Mehmed's Trebizond campaign, had attacked the Ottoman fortresses on the Danube. He is said to have impaled envoys. In the summer of 1462 Mehmed invaded Wallachia and put Vlad to flight, made his brother Radu voivode and set the annual tribute at 10,000 gold ducats. In the same campaigning season the island of Lesbos was annexed.

Bosnia (1463). When the king of Bosnia accepted Hungarian protection, Mehmed moved out from Skopje. King Stjepan Tomašević was executed after the capture of Bobovac, and the sanjak of Bosnia was established. By a charter dated 28 May 1463 Mehmed granted the Franciscans of Bosnia religious freedom and protection. When the Hungarian king withdrew his army, he took Jajce (16 December 1463); Mehmed besieged Jajce in vain in 1464.

Albania (1466-1478). Skanderbeg (Kastrioti), although he had been raised in the same palace as Mehmed, resisted with Venetian and Hungarian support. In 1466 Mehmed built the fortress of Elbasan and returned, and in 1467 he entered Albania a second time. Skanderbeg died on 17 January 1468. In 1478 a third and final campaign was made, Kruja surrendered in June 1478 and the conquest of Albania was complete. Shkodër passed to the Ottomans only with the peace of 1479.

The War with Venice (1463-1479)

Venice decided on war in 1463, after the Ottoman capture of Argos. The Pope brought Venice, Hungary and Burgundy together in an alliance, and a plan for partitioning the Ottoman state was even drawn up. Mehmed answered with thoroughgoing measures: he had the arsenal at Kadırga Harbour built and, to secure Istanbul, had the facing fortresses of Sultaniye and Kilitbahir built on the Dardanelles.

The Ottoman fleet developed during the war. In 1470 he had a bridge built between the Venetian island of Euboea (Negroponte) and the mainland and passed his army across, and by taking the fortress on 11 July 1470 dealt Venice a heavy blow. Between 1474 and 1478 Shkodër was besieged repeatedly; in 1477 Ottoman raiders advanced through Friuli and the Isonzo to the plain facing the city of Venice. In 1478 Mehmed went to Albania in person and besieged Shkodër; the fortress withstood heavy artillery fire, but the surrounding forts were taken and the city was left blockaded. The war, which had lasted sixteen years, ended with a treaty on 25 January 1479. Venice gave up Shkodër, Akçahisar, the islands of Lemnos and Euboea, and the region of Maina, while Mehmed returned the other places he had taken in the war in the Morea, Albania and Dalmatia. Venice agreed to pay 10,000 gold pieces a year and to pay within two years the old debt of 100,000 ducats remaining from the alum tax-farm; it obtained the right to keep a bailo in Istanbul to deal with the legal affairs of its own subjects. Although Mehmed had not been able to take fortresses such as Koron, Modon and Lepanto, he had driven Venice away from Albania, the Morea and the northern Aegean and made it tributary.

Central Anatolia, Karaman and Uzun Hasan

After the death of the Karamanid ruler İbrahim Bey (İnalcık gives 1469), a struggle for the throne broke out among his sons. Pîr Ahmed asked help from the Conqueror, İshak Bey from the Akkoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan. Uzun Hasan moved in İshak Bey's favour, took Kayseri, Develi, Aksaray, Konya and Beyşehir and handed them over; Mehmed, for his part, supported Pîr Ahmed. In 1468 Mehmed campaigned in Anatolia, took Gevale Castle and Konya, and brought his son Prince Mustafa from Manisa to Konya and appointed him governor. From 1471 the grand vizier İshak Pasha and Gedik Ahmed Pasha made great campaigns to bring Karaman to obedience; Larende, Niğde, Alaiyye, Mokan (Meynan), Gorigos (Korykos), Gülek and Luluva were taken over.

Uzun Hasan had meanwhile taken his seat on the throne of Tabriz and begun to regard himself as the "overlord" of the Anatolian principalities. He was disturbed by the Ottoman capture of Trebizond, the seizure of Koyulhisar and the imposition of a second customs duty on silk at Tokat. In the spring of 1472 the Karamanids and İsfendiyaroğlu, together with Akkoyunlu forces, took Tokat by a ruse and plundered the city. Mehmed's answer was to rout the Akkoyunlu vanguard near Eflatunpınarı; Yûsufca Mirza was taken prisoner. Meanwhile the Venetian fleet plundered Antalya (August 1472) and İzmir (13 September 1472).

Otlukbeli, 11 August 1473. In the spring months Mehmed advanced toward Erzincan with a great army, estimated at 70,000 to 100,000 at most. The Rumelian forces crossing the Euphrates were caught in a surprise attack, and the beylerbey of Rumelia, Has Murad, was killed. The Ottoman army had only eight days' provisions left. At the insistence of his sons, Uzun Hasan accepted a decisive battle at Otlukbeli, at the place called Başkent. Through the efforts of the pashas Davud and Mahmud, who succeeded in holding the hills, the Ottoman army recovered from the effect of the surprise and took up battle order. The successful attack of the Anatolian azebs under Prince Mustafa on the left wing, and the killing of Uzun Hasan's son Zeynel, determined the result; Uzun Hasan fled before the kapıkulu under the sultan's command had entered the fight in earnest. After the battle 4,000 Turkmens were executed and 2,050 captives taken. Light mortars were taken on a campaign for the first time.

The connection of this victory with Amasya is documented. The Conqueror's son Prince Bayezid was at that time sanjak governor of Amasya and took part in the Battle of Otlukbeli. It is said that during the battle Uzun Hasan, unable to withstand the charges of both Mustafa and Bayezid, fled the field. On the return from the campaign the Conqueror stayed in Amasya for about a month with the prince. This is the most reliable record that the Conqueror was in Amasya.

After the battle the Conqueror took over Şebinkarahisar, and Uzun Hasan's envoy Ahmed Bekricî asked for peace. When Uzun Hasan died in 1478, the Conqueror had Torul, on the Gümüşhane-Trebizond road, taken, completing the conquest of Trebizond. In 1474 Gedik Ahmed Pasha had to make a new campaign to remove the Karamanid Kasım Bey, and the Karamanid principality was by this campaign brought entirely under control.

Amasya's Prince: Bayezid

Amasya's relation to the Conqueror's age is established chiefly through his son Bayezid. Prince Bayezid was appointed sanjak governor of Amasya in 1454, after the conquest of Constantinople, at the age of seven; the article presents him as the youngest prince to hold the post. His tenure lasted until his father's death in 1481, and by the article's ranking he was among the princes who served longest as sanjak governor in Amasya, twenty-seven years. His brother Mustafa had been in Konya from 1468, while Cem was serving as sanjak governor of Karaman when the Conqueror died.

Bayezid's Amasya years draw a lively picture in the sources. Lâdik, a district dependent on Amasya, was the summer seat of the sanjak governors, and Bayezid spent every summer there. He appointed experienced statesmen such as Çandarlı İbrahim and Yahya Pasha as lalas and looked after the artists around him. He began to learn fine writing from the Amasyan calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah and received an ijazah from the young calligrapher. When he left Amasya to take the throne on his father's death, he invited his teacher Sheikh Hamdullah, the founder of the Ottoman school of calligraphy, to Istanbul with his family. According to a tradition based on Gülzâr-ı Savâb, when Sheikh Hamdullah came to Istanbul he stayed at the house of his Amasyan calligrapher relatives Cemaleddin and Abdullah, who lived at Saraçhanebaşı; one of the palace doorkeepers had him write a petition to present to the sultan, and as Bayezid read the petition he recognised his teacher's hand, ordered the writer to be found and brought, set aside a special place for the Sheikh in the palace and appointed him teacher of calligraphy. On leaving the sanjak Bayezid left his eldest son Ahmed, born in Amasya, as governor in his place. Ahmed, like his father, opened his palace to poets and scholars; one of the poets in his circle was the Amasyan woman poet Mihrî Hatun, who presented most of her qasidas to him. In 1481, the year Bayezid took the throne, the foundation of the Bayezid II Complex was laid by Ahmed, and the complex was finished in 1486.

Another scholarly trace is the medical book that the Amasyan physician Sabuncuoğlu Şerefeddin dedicated to the Conqueror. This work is one of the signs of the scholarly contact between Amasya and the Conqueror's court.

The relationship between Bayezid and the Conqueror grew strained with time. The Conqueror's fiscal and administrative policy, that is, the seizure of waqfs and private properties by the state and their distribution as timars, had caused wide discontent. When Prince Bayezid, governor of Amasya, who had for some time been on bad terms with his father, opposed the application of this law in his own region (Amasya, Tokat and Trebizond), the people turned their eyes to him. Cem, on the other hand, was regarded as the candidate to continue his father's martial policy and was supported by Karamânî Mehmed Pasha. In the last years, as the Conqueror's illness grew worse, a secret struggle for the throne had begun between the two princes. Bayezid's first act on becoming sultan was to return these properties and waqfs to their owners. Amasya thus enters the Conqueror's story also as the place where a prince became, in the people's eyes, an alternative to the sultan's policy.

Crimea, Moldavia, Wallachia and the Black Sea (1454-1479)

Once he controlled the Straits, the Conqueror set out to make the Black Sea a "Turkish lake". In 1454 he sent a fleet to the Black Sea and the Genoese at Caffa were made tributary. In 1455 the prince of Moldavia accepted Ottoman suzerainty and an annual tribute of 2,000 gold pieces. In 1456 the empire of Trebizond was made tributary; Amasra was taken in 1459, Sinop and Trebizond in 1461, and the Anatolian coasts of the Black Sea were added to Ottoman territory.

Stephen the Great, voivode of Moldavia, attached himself to the Jagiellons, stopped the tribute, and in 1475 defeated the Ottoman army under Hadım Süleyman Pasha at Vaslui. Venetian and Polish records put Ottoman losses at over forty thousand; this figure rests on partisan sources and should be read with caution. In early July 1476 Mehmed entered Moldavia in person, defeated Stephen's army at Akdere and burned Suceava, but could not take the fortress. He withdrew because of famine and plague.

At about the same time the disorder in Crimea created an opportunity for the Ottomans. The grand vizier Gedik Ahmed Pasha was sent to Caffa with a strong fleet, and Caffa surrendered on 6 June 1475 (9 June according to some sources). Gedik Ahmed Pasha seized all the Genoese colonies in Crimea and Azak was taken. He freed Mengli Giray, who had been imprisoned at Sudak, and had him sign a document showing his loyalty to the Ottomans; the fortress of Mangup was also taken over. In 1478 Mengli Giray took his seat again on the khan's throne. In 1479 a fleet was sent to the coasts of Taman and Circassia, and Anapa, Kopa and Matrega were seized.

Rhodes and Otranto (1480)

After the peace with Venice Mehmed turned his eyes to Rhodes, to Italy and to the Pope. In the spring of 1480 he sent a fleet and army against Rhodes under the vizier Mesih Pasha, and against southern Italy under Gedik Ahmed Pasha. The siege of Rhodes began on 23 May 1480, and after a hard ninety-day investment the Ottoman army was forced to withdraw with heavy losses.

Gedik Ahmed Pasha, for his part, had taken in 1479 the islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos, which belonged to the Tocco dynasty. With 132 ships and a force of 18,000 men he set out from Vlorë on 26 July 1480 and took Otranto by assault on 11 August 1480. The fortress was turned into a base. This campaign was regarded as the beginning of the conquest of Rome, and it is said that the Pope considered abandoning Rome and fleeing. When Gedik Ahmed Pasha returned to Rumelia to gather new forces, the news of the Conqueror's death arrived. The Ottoman garrison at Otranto surrendered to the enemy on 10 September 1481.

State Order, Law and Currency

The Conqueror's reign cannot be described by conquests alone. The two main axes of domestic policy were the resettlement and rebuilding of Istanbul and the increase of military forces; these two raised expenses greatly and required new taxes. By issuing new akçes and exchanging the old akçe at a fifth less, a kind of tax was laid on all cash wealth, and new akçes were issued in 1451, 1460, 1470, 1475 and 1481. This practice created such deep discontent that one of the conditions imposed on Bayezid II at his accession was not to issue new akçes more than once.

Daily necessities such as salt, soap and candles were let out region by region as tax-farms. In the autumn of 1458 the çift tax paid by the reaya in the province of Anatolia was raised from 22 akçes to 33. The conversion into state land of land that had passed out of the state's hands as waqf and private property was applied widely, and according to Tursun Bey more than 20,000 villages and hamlets were distributed to timar-holding sipahis. This land reform, carried out under the grand viziership (1476-1481) of the chancellor Karamânî Mehmed Pasha, is the very reform that Bayezid, governor of Amasya, opposed. In the field of law the "Law Code of the Conqueror" (Kânûnnâme-i Âl-i Osman) is cited; this text kept many basic principles of the Ottoman state order in force until the Tanzimat period, and also contained the principle of fratricide.

He also took important measures in trade. In trade between regions, native Turkish, Muslim, Jewish, Greek and Armenian merchants took the place of the Italians; cotton cloth developed in the Lakes region and western Anatolia, mohair in Ankara and Kastamonu, silk in Bursa and Istanbul, and broadcloth weaving in Salonica and Istanbul. Ottoman subjects, of whatever religion, paid less customs duty than foreigners.

Building, Learning and the Arts

After the conquest he turned eight churches in Istanbul (among them the Zeyrek Madrasa) into madrasas and opened the Hagia Sophia Madrasa. Around his own mosque he founded the Fatih Complex, whose construction lasted from 1463 to 1470. The complex comprised units such as a mosque, madrasa, library, soup kitchen, hospital, bath and caravanserai; the famous Sahn-ı Semân madrasas around it formed a higher-education complex of eight advanced madrasas. The library began in 1474 with 800 volumes placed in two cabinets beside the mihrab of the Fatih Mosque. The Topkapı Palace was built between about 1465 and 1478. At Eyüp he also had a mosque and complex built around the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. More than 500 architectural works are said to have been built in his reign.

He wrote poetry under the pen name "Avnî". The only work containing his poems is in the Millet Library in Istanbul, and this small divan holds seventy ghazals, a muhammes and a qit'a. His style is plain and unadorned; he is said to have preferred Turkish expressions to Arabic-Persian compounds.

He had a special interest in geography, mathematics and astronomy. Scholars such as Molla Gürânî, Molla Hüsrev, Hocazâde Muslihuddin and Ali Kuşçu were around him. He revived the famous dispute between Sayyid Sharif al-Jurjani and Taftazani, and had Hocazâde and Ali al-Tusi examine the theological debate between Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazali. He also tried to understand Western culture: Patriarch Gennadios wrote his İ'tikādnâme (Confession of Faith) for him, in the summer of 1456 the Conqueror had Amiroutzes make a map of the world, and Italian humanists were present at the court. Gentile Bellini stayed in Istanbul from September 1479 to January 1481, painted the Conqueror's portrait and decorated the walls of the new palace with frescoes in the Renaissance style. Fifty works relating to Western culture from the Conqueror's library have survived, forty-two of them in Greek. According to the record of his contemporaries he knew three languages, Turkish, Greek and Slavic; he is described as an intelligent, harsh-tempered ruler who had turned his back on pleasure and ease and wished to win fame like Alexander of Macedon.

His Family and Children

Among his wives are counted Gülbahar Hatun (Bayezid's mother), Sitti Mükrime Hatun, Gülşah Hatun (Mustafa's mother) and Çiçek Hatun (Cem's mother); the sources differ on their origins. Citing Alderson, it is also recorded that he had seventeen wives and four daughters. His daughters known by name are Ayşe and Gevherhan; Gevherhan Sultan was married to Uğurlu Mehmed Bey, son of Uzun Hasan. Göde Ahmed, who came to the Akkoyunlu throne, was a grandson through the Conqueror's daughter.

His favourite son, Prince Mustafa, set out in ill health during the siege of Develi while governor of Karaman and died in 1474. This meant that the throne would be left to the struggle between Bayezid and Cem. İnalcık also finds the names the Conqueror gave his sons symbolic: he named his first son after his great-grandfather Bayezid the Thunderbolt, his third son after Jamshid (Cem), the famous ruler of the Iranian tradition, and his grandson after Oghuz Khan.

His Death and Tomb

The Conqueror crossed to Üsküdar for a new campaign and died on 3 May 1481, at forty-nine, at the place called Hünkârçayırı between Üsküdar and Gebze. The cause of death is given as nikris (gout); it is noted that the claims of poisoning rest on the interpretation of a piece of information found in Âşıkpaşazâde and are not confirmed by other sources. The poisoning thesis was first advanced in 1953 by Franz Babinger (accusing the physician Yakup Pasha), and some sources have also alleged that Bayezid ordered it; little credit is given to these. Since the target of the campaign he was to undertake was kept secret, it is not known: there are various guesses, such as Rhodes, southern Italy and the Mamluk Sultanate.

The days after his death were confused. The news of his death was at first concealed, and the body was brought to the palace with the words "the sultan needs the bath". Messengers were sent to the princes. The Janissaries, who learned the news eleven days later, rose in revolt; the grand vizier Karamânî Mehmed Pasha, a supporter of Cem, was killed, and the houses and shops of non-Muslim merchants were attacked. Bayezid received the news of his father's death on 7 May and reached Üsküdar on 21 May; the next day he attended the funeral, went to the Topkapı Palace, and the same day the divan declared the sultanate to belong to Bayezid. The Conqueror was buried on 22 May 1481. The prince who had set out from Amasya, summoning Amasya's calligrapher Sheikh Hamdullah to Istanbul after him, had taken his father's throne.

His tomb lies in the graveyard of the Fatih Mosque, which he had built himself. It is related that in Venice the news of his death was greeted with the words "La Grande Aquila è morta!" (The Great Eagle is dead).

His Legacy and His Place in Amasya's Memory

Mehmed the Conqueror is, in İnalcık's words, "in the true sense the founder of a new empire". The type of the "Ottoman sultan", uniting in his person the Turkish, Iranian, Islamic and Roman traditions of rulership, was born with him.

For Amasya his legacy has two layers. The solid layer consists of the following: that his brothers Ahmed and Alâeddin Ali served as sanjak governors in this city and died there, that his son Bayezid remained sanjak governor here throughout his father's life, the summer seat of Lâdik, the move of Sheikh Hamdullah to Istanbul, his own month-long stay here on the return from Otlukbeli, Bayezid's opposition to the land reform in Amasya, Tokat and Trebizond, and finally Bayezid's rise to the throne from Amasya. The disputed layer is the claim that Mehmed was sanjak governor of Amasya as a child, and the story of his kneeling before Sheikh Abdurrahman. İnalcık finds the first claim doubtful, and as long as they rest on no document both must be called tradition.

Chronology

1432: Mehmed II was born in Edirne (30 March).

1438: Prince Ahmed died in Amasya; local sources say Mehmed was appointed sanjak governor of Amasya, a claim İnalcık finds doubtful.

1440: Prince Alâeddin Ali was appointed sanjak governor of Amasya.

1443: Mehmed was sent as governor to Manisa with his two lalas; late in the year Alâeddin Ali died and Mehmed became the sole heir to the throne.

1444: First reign (August); Hurufi uprising in Edirne (22 September); Battle of Varna (10 November).

1446: Murad II returned to the throne; Mehmed was sent to Manisa.

1448: Took part in the Second Battle of Kosovo.

1450: Married Sitti Mükrime Hatun.

1451: Second accession (18 February).

1452: Completion of Rumeli Hisarı (August).

1453: Conquest of Constantinople (6 April-29 May); execution of Çandarlı Halil Pasha (10 July).

1454: Gennadios became patriarch; Prince Bayezid was appointed sanjak governor of Amasya.

1456: Siege of Belgrade.

1459: Capture of Smederevo (June); capture of Amasra.

1460: Morea campaign; capture of Mistra (29 May).

1461: Conquest of Sinop and Trebizond (Trebizond 15 August).

1462: Wallachian campaign; annexation of Lesbos.

1463: Conquest of Bosnia; the war with Venice began.

1470: Capture of Euboea (11 July); completion of the Fatih Complex.

1473: Battle of Otlukbeli (11 August); on the return the Conqueror stayed in Amasya for about a month.

1474: Death of Prince Mustafa.

1475: Capture of Caffa (June).

1476: Moldavian campaign.

1478: Surrender of Kruja; blockade of Shkodër.

1479: Peace with Venice (25 January); arrival of Gentile Bellini in Istanbul (September).

1480: Siege of Rhodes (23 May); capture of Otranto (11 August).

1481: Death of the Conqueror (3 May); accession of Bayezid; foundation of the Bayezid II Complex (completed 1486); loss of Otranto (10 September).

Sources

Academic studies

  • Halil İnalcık, "Mehmed II", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/mehmed-ii) islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Selim Özcan, "Amasya'da Sancak Beyliği Yapan Şehzadeler Döneminde Amasya Şehri", Amasya Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, issue 5 (DergiPark); the article cites Hüseyin Hüsameddin Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. III; Joseph von Hammer, Osmanlı Tarihi; Halil İnalcık, "II. Mehmed", İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. VII (MEB); İsmail Hakkı Uzunçarşılı, "Sancağa Çıkarılan Osmanlı Şehzadeleri", Belleten, issue 156; Muhittin Serin, "Hamdullah Efendi", DİA, vol. 15, whose sources are relayed here through this article

Other sources

  • "II. Mehmed", Vikipedi (tr.wikipedia.org)
  • "Mehmed II", Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)
  • "Fatih Sultan Mehmed", Osmanlı Tarihi Ansiklopedisi (ehlisunnetbuyukleri.com)

Online sources