The Battle of Prusa (Bursa), 1317-1326, The Birth of the Ottoman Empire, Christendom's Harbinger and Scourge

The conquest of Brusa marked the dawn of a new era. Osman the first, his name now etched in the chronicles of history, and his heirs rose as the unchallenged lords of Asia Minor. With this single victory, the Ottoman Empire was born, its shadow poised to stretch across continents and reshape the fate of empires for centuries to come.

Prusa (Bursa). 1317 - 6th April, 1326
Turkish Forces: Unknown
Byzantine Forces: Unknown

Additional Reading and Research:

• McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks.
• Parry, V.J. A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730.
• Koprulu, Mehmet. The Seljuks of Anatolia.
• Muller, Herbert. The Loom of History.

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Transcript

The Turks, a fierce and restless people, emerged not from the soil of modern Turkey, but from the untamed heart of Turkestan, the rugged expanse of Central Asia where only the strongest survived. By the mid-sixth century, the Turks, driven by their indomitable spirit, united into a vast tribal confederation, only to fracture soon after, cleaving into eastern and western factions—each brimming with ambitions of conquest and dominion.

The eastern Turks, bold and cunning, engaged in a fierce dance of alliance and warfare with the mighty Tang Dynasty of China, sometimes standing as their allies, but more often feeling the sting of defeat in battles that shook the heavens. Meanwhile, the western Turks earned their name as conquerors, seizing vast territories from the Oxus River to the shores of the Mediterranean, their war banners casting long shadows over a trembling world.

Their first bold stride into the pages of western history came when they clashed with Arab forces pushing Islam beyond Persia into the heart of Central Asia, a collision of worlds that would echo for centuries. These once-pastoral Turks, hardened by life on the steppes, found themselves face-to-face with the grandeur of Persian and Byzantine civilization. Slowly, they turned toward the religions of the west, embracing Islam, though some still held to other faiths with iron grip.

It wasn’t long before Turkic warriors, eager for glory, filled the ranks of Muslim armies—some as free men, others as slave soldiers—paving the way for the legendary Mamluks and the future Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire. These Turks were reborn as ghazi, fearless border warriors, called upon by Muslim rulers to guard the empire’s northeastern frontier, where the edge of civilization met the raw, untamed wilds.

At this decisive moment, the western Turks themselves divided: the eastern faction rising as the Ghaznavids, while the western faction took up the mantle of the Seljuks, each forging new paths of conquest and power. The majority of the Turks embraced the strict tenets of Sunni Islam with zeal, spreading the faith wherever their iron-tipped spears carried them.

From their stronghold in Ghazna, a city just southwest of modern Kabul, the Ghaznavids surged eastward into India throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, wielding their power like a blade and thrusting their religion into new lands. Their crowning achievement was the introduction of Islam into India, yet the brutal force with which they imposed conversion cast a long shadow, making them more feared than embraced. Yet it was not Indian defiance that brought the Ghaznavids low, but the rising might of their own Turkic brethren, the Seljuks, who shattered them in the crucible of war.

The western Turks, under the banner of their fierce leader Seljuk, likewise pledged their swords to Muslim rulers, serving with the same ferocity that would one day make them legends. Stationed on the Asian frontier, the Seljuks drew swarms of Turkic tribes newly converted to Islam, until the lands ceded to them by Muslim rulers could no longer sustain the growing horde of nomads hungry for space and conquest. Their swelling ranks only magnified their military power, but it also intensified their hunger for more grazing lands, pushing them ever westward in search of new territories to claim.

As the Buyid dynasty withered and the Ghaznavids turned their gaze toward India, the Seljuks seized the moment, sweeping across the lands west of Persia with startling ease, carving out their own domain. They crushed the Ghaznavids in 1040, then in 1055, marched into Baghdad, not to sack it, but to restore the city to Sunni dominance, wresting it from the grip of Shiite rule. Their conquest of Baghdad was not for plunder, but for faith, reclaiming the city from the Shiites and restoring it to the strict order of Sunni Islam.

The marriage of the Seljuk leader to the caliph’s sister, followed by his elevation to the title of sultan, solidified the Seljuks as the dominant military and political power in the Middle East, their authority unchallenged. Driven by fervor and ambition, the Seljuks thundered across Armenia, the Levant, and into Asia Minor, where their greatest general, Malik Shah, dealt a crushing blow to the Byzantines at Manzikert in 1071, a victory that echoed through the ages.

Though fiercely committed to the restoration of Sunni Islam, the Seljuks did not force conversions as the Ghaznavids had done in India, choosing instead a different path, one of religious tolerance within their growing empire. While Christians and Jews became subjects under Seljuk rule, they were not persecuted, for the Seljuks upheld the teachings of Mohammed, governing with a measured hand of tolerance.

Having secured their grip on Asia Minor, the Seljuks chose Konia as their capital, a city steeped in ancient history, its roots reaching back to the days of the Hittites. Konia flourished under Seljuk rule, transforming into a beacon of culture and learning, a testament to the Seljuks' vision beyond the sword. The rigid orthodoxy of the Sunni Seljuks sent waves of fear through Europe, where rulers cast aside diplomacy and chose the sword, sparking the flames of the Crusades. Though the Crusades failed to establish a lasting European foothold in the Middle East, the Seljuks' reign, unbroken by Christian armies, was ultimately shattered by the same force that had once brought them to power—an invasion from Central Asia, this time under the unstoppable Mongols of the thirteenth century.

The Seljuk hold over Asia Minor crippled the Byzantine Empire, leaving it vulnerable to its final conquerors—the Ottomans, heirs to the Seljuks' legacy of dominance. The rise of the Ottoman Empire was a triumph of perfect timing and brutal precision. By the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, the Mongols, once a thunderous force, had lost their grip, and the Byzantine Empire, a shadow of its former glory, stood on weakened legs. In the lands of Asia Minor and beyond, the absence of strong rulers created a dangerous void, a vacuum waiting to be filled by a force with the strength and ambition to dominate.

The people of Asia Minor clung to their steppe roots, restless and unruly, disdaining the sedentary life. They were a breed of warriors, honed by generations of battle, their hearts set on conquest. This same fierce independence had been the Seljuks' Achilles' heel. Their rulers’ futile attempts to bind these wild spirits with taxes and settled living sparked rebellion, keeping their empire from solidifying into lasting power. The Turks were loyal only to strength. Birthright meant nothing to them—victory did. Their leaders had no choice but to keep the fires of war burning, for conquest was the only currency that could buy their people's allegiance.

Osman I, a man of iron will and relentless ambition, emerged as the dominant prince of Asia Minor, drawing warriors to his banner like moths to a flame, his name whispered with awe and respect. In 1290, Osman was granted lands for his service to the Seljuks. His base was the town of Sorgut, a place rumored to have been fortified long ago by Hannibal himself. Strategically nestled southeast of Constantinople, it stood near the Sea of Marmara, perfectly poised for greater ambitions. With his lands pressed against the Byzantine frontier, Osman stood at the gateway to Christendom. Warriors flocked to his side, eager for the honor and riches that came with battling Christians, far more glorious than shedding the blood of fellow Turks.

Osman’s raids against the Byzantines were savage and calculated. Sometimes they were swift strikes for plunder, other times they were deliberate moves to seize territory, and each action made the eyes of Constantinople turn nervously toward him. Among all the princes of Asia Minor, none cast a darker shadow over Byzantium than Osman. He was seen as the greatest threat, a rising storm on their weakening borders.

Osman set his sights on three jewels of the Byzantine frontier: Nicaea, Nicomedia, and Brusa. In 1301, he struck first at Nicaea, laying siege to this ancient city, determined to pry it from Byzantine hands. The siege of Nicaea drew the full attention of Emperor Andronicus II. In a bid to save the city, the Byzantines dispatched 2,000 soldiers to break the siege, but Osman, ever the tactician, ambushed and annihilated them at the Battle of Baphaeon, a crushing blow to Byzantine pride. The countryside emptied as terrified locals fled to Nicomedia, seeking refuge from Osman’s advancing forces. Desperate, the emperor turned to Alan mercenaries to confront him, but even these hardened warriors fell before Osman’s relentless onslaught in 1302 and again in 1304.

Despite his victories, Nicaea and Nicomedia held firm. Unable to take them by force, Osman returned to his favored tactic—raiding—continuing his campaign of terror across Byzantine lands. Brusa, once a town equal in stature to Nicaea and Nicomedia, had never fully recovered from the Gothic invasions of the third century. Unlike its neighbors, it remained in a state of decline under Byzantine rule, its former glory a distant memory. Before Constantine had forged his empire, Brusa's defenses had been meticulously rebuilt, its walls a bulwark of strength. When Osman laid siege to the town in 1317, these ancient fortifications proved their worth, withstanding his relentless assault for over nine long years.

The siege of Brusa remains shrouded in mystery. Few records survive to tell the tale, but we know this: it was a grueling, drawn-out affair. Some sources suggest it may have been more intermittent than continuous, but for nearly a decade, the shadow of war loomed over the city. On April 6, 1326, Brusa’s walls finally crumbled, but Osman, the relentless warrior who had brought the city to its knees, lay on his deathbed. He would never set foot inside the gates of the city he had fought so hard to take.

Osman's son, Orkhan, ascended to power, inheriting his father’s mantle and the city of Brusa. With bold vision, Orkhan claimed Brusa as the capital of the new Ottoman Empire, a throne from which his dynasty would rise to dominate the world. The scars of the siege were swiftly healed. Under Orkhan’s hand, Brusa’s former splendor was revived, its streets once again bustling with life, and its elegance restored as befitted the capital of a burgeoning empire. Brusa soon blossomed into "a great city with fine bazaars and broad streets, worthy of the greatest of the Turkmen kings" (Muller, The Loom of History, p. 301), a symbol of Ottoman grandeur and ambition.

While Osman may have sown the seeds, it was Orkhan who truly forged the power of the Ottomans, turning a fledgling dynasty into an unstoppable force on the stage of history. In 1331, Orkhan shattered a Byzantine relief force and seized Nicaea. Six years later, in 1337, Nicomedia too fell under his relentless grip, marking the collapse of the last Byzantine strongholds in Asia Minor. Each victory stoked the fires of Ottoman ambition, drawing more warriors to Orkhan’s banner, eager to fight for the rising empire that now seemed unstoppable.

Though brief moments of peace flickered—such as Orkhan’s marriage to a Byzantine princess—the Muslim Ottomans and Christian Byzantines remained locked in opposition, their animosity shaping the future of the region. Orkhan’s son, Suleiman, led the Ottoman armies across the Dardanelles, pushing into Thrace with the precision of a master strategist. With this conquest, the capital shifted from Brusa to Adrianople, signaling the Ottomans’ growing presence in Europe. In 1453, Mehmet, a descendant of Osman, achieved what had once seemed impossible—he conquered Constantinople, the last bastion of Byzantium. Renaming it Istanbul, he made it the jewel of the Ottoman Empire, a capital that would endure until the empire’s fall in 1919.

The Ottomans triumphed where the Seljuks had faltered, for they mastered what the Seljuks could not—they overcame their nomadic roots and forged a lasting empire. "The astonishing achievement of the Ottomans," writes McCarthy, "was breaking the cycle of birth, short life, then dissolution that characterized the earlier nomadic empires" (McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks, p. 36). The Ottomans endured, defying the fate of their predecessors. This remarkable endurance was largely due to the extraordinary leadership of the first nine Ottoman sultans, a chain of rulers whose prowess spanned two centuries, each one building upon the might of the last.

Through relentless campaigns—first against the Byzantines, then the Christians of southeastern Europe, and finally the Shiites of Persia—the Ottomans channeled the warlike nature of their people, feeding their hunger for battle and expansion. Yet, the Ottomans were no mere warmongers. By embracing Christian and European advisors, adopting military innovations, and harnessing new technologies, they gradually guided their empire toward a more settled, stable way of life. The sultan, firmly seated in the capital, allowed the provinces a degree of autonomy, but it was the unifying force of shared culture, religion, and economic life that held the empire’s vast population together, binding them under a common banner.

Osman’s lifetime of warfare against the Byzantines, coupled with his legacy of shrewd leadership, transformed Brusa into an imperial capital. Even when the capital moved to grander power centers, Brusa remained a city of beauty and reverence. "The successors of Orkhan beautified and sanctified the city by building mosques and tombs, the earliest Ottoman shrines" (Muller, The Loom of History, p. 301), immortalizing the city's place in the annals of Ottoman history.

The conquest of Brusa marked the dawn of a new era. Osman I, his name now etched in the chronicles of destiny, and his heirs rose as the unchallenged lords of Asia Minor. With this single victory, the Ottoman Empire was born, its shadow poised to stretch across continents and reshape the fate of empires for centuries to come.