The military victories of the nationalist movement resulted in a shift of attitude by the European powers, which recognized the new reality on the ground. Having witnessed the decisive defeat of Greek forces in August 1922 and realizing that their allies, particularly the French, did not intend to fight the Turkish nationalists, the British convinced the Greek government to withdraw from eastern Thrace and sign the Armistice of Mudanya with the Turks on October 11, 1922. On November 1 the Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the Ottoman sultanate. Shortly afterward a Turkish delegation led by the hero of the war of independence, Ismet Pasha, arrived in Lausanne, Switzerland, to negotiate a peace treaty with the Allies, which was concluded on July 24, 1923.
Following the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, British troops evacuated Istanbul in October 1923, and Mustafa Kemal and his victorious army entered the city. The time had come to deal with the Ottoman royal family, who had collaborated with foreign occupation forces throughout the war of national liberation and had condemned Mustafa Kemal to death in absentia. On October 29, 1923, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, with Mustafa Kemal as its first president, while a member of the Ottoman ruling family, Abdülmecid (Abdulmejid), remained the caliph. Determined to cut the country’s ties with its Ottoman past and to create a secular republic, the new government moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, and on March 3, 1924, the Grand National Assembly abolished the institution of caliphate and sent the last member of the Ottoman royal family into exile. The Ottoman Empire had ceased to exist.
Further Reading
Abou-El-Haj, Rifa’at Ali. “Ottoman Diplomacy at Karlowitz.” In Ottoman Diplomacy: Conventional or Unconventional, edited by A. Nuri Yurdusev, 89–113. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Ahmad, Feroz. The Young Turks. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
Aksan, Virginia H. An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700–1783. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995.
Alderson, A. D. The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Bayerle, Gustav. Pashas, Begs and Effendis: A Historical Dictionary of Titles and Terms in the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1997.
Braude, Benjamin, and Bernard Lewis, eds. Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire. 2 vols. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982.
Braudel, Fernand. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. 2 vols. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
Clot, André. Suleiman the Magnificent. London: Saqi Books, 2005.
Davison, Roderic H. Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1999.
Davison, Roderic H. Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876. New York: Gordian Press, 1973.
Findley, Carter V. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte 1789–1922. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire 1300–1923. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Hathaway, Jane. The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. London: Pearson Longman, 2008.
Hathaway, Jane. Beshir Agha: Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Imperial Harem. Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2005.
Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Hurewitz, J. C. Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary Record 1535–1956. 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1956.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire: 1300–1650. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Inalcik, Halil. “The Rise of the Ottoman Empire.” In A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, edited by M. A. Cook, 10–53. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Jelavich, Charles, and Barbara Jelavich. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Karpat, Kemal H. Ottoman Population 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Karpat, Kemal H., and Robert W. Zens, eds. Ottoman Borderlands: Issues, Personalities and Political Change. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.
Kasaba, Reşat. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Kurat, A. N. “The Reign of Mehmed IV, 1648–87.” In A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, edited by M. A. Cook, 157–177. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Mango, Andrew. Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey. New York: Overlook Press, 1999.
Mardin, Şerif. The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.
McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923. London: Addison Wesley Longman Limited, 1997.
Monshi, Eskandar Beg. History of Shah Abbas the Great (Tarikh-i Alamara-yi Abbasi). Translated by Roger M. Savory. 2 vols. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1978.
Naima, Mustafa (Mustafa Naim). Annals of the Turkish Empire from 1591 to 1659 of the Christian Era. Translated by Charles Fraser. New York: Arno Press, 1973.
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Roemer, H. R. “The Safavid Period.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, edited by Peter Jackson and Lawrence Lockhart. Vol. 6. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Rogan, Eugene. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. New York: Basic Books, 2015.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sugar, Peter F. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule: 1354–1804. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Sykes, Sir Percy. A History of Persia. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1951.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
CHRONOLOGY
1260–1310
Establishment of Turkoman principalities in western Anatolia.
1290–1326
Osman I also known as Osman Gāzi rules.
1326
Ottomans capture Bursa. Death of Osman and accession of Orhan.
1326–1362
Orhan Gāzi rules.
1327
The first Ottoman silver coin (akçe/akche) is minted.
1331
Ottoman conquest of Iznik (Nicaea).
1337
Ottoman conquest of Izmit (Nicomedia).
1354
Ottomans take Ankara and Gallipoli.
1361
Ottoman conquest of Adrianople (Edirne).
1362–1389
Murad I rules.
1363–1365
Ottoman conquest of southern Bulgaria and Thrace.
1371
Ottoman victory over the Serbs at Chernomen.
1385
Ottoman conquest of Sofia.
1387
Ottoman conquest of Thessaloniki (Salonika).
1388
A coalition of Serbs, Bosnians, and Bulgarians defeats the Ottomans at Pločnik (Ploshnik).
1389
Battle of Kosovo Polje. Ottoman sultan Murad I is killed.
1389–1402
Bayezid I rules.
1389–1392
Ottoman conquest of Turkoman principalities of western Anatolia.
1394
Ottoman conquest of Thessaly.
&n
bsp; 1396
Bayezid I defeats a crusader army at the Battle of Nicopolis.
1397
Bayezid I annexes Karaman.
1398
Ottoman conquest of the Bulgarian principality of Vidin.
1399
Ottoman conquest of the Mamluk-held cities of Malatya and Elbistan in the Euphrates valley.
1402
Timur defeats Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara.
1402–1413
Interregnum. Sons of Bayezid fight for Ottoman throne.
1413–1421
Mehmed I rules.
1413
Mehmed I unifies Ottoman territories under his rule.
1413–1416
Revolt of Şeyh (Sheikh) Bedreddin.
1421–1444; 1446–1451
Murad II rules.
1423–1430
Ottoman-Venetian War.
1430
Ottomans capture Thessaloniki (Salonika).
1437
Ottoman conquest of the Turkoman principality of Hamidili.
1441–1442
János (John) Hunyadi defeats the Ottomans in Transylvania.
1443–1468
Rebellion of George Kastrioti, also known as Iskender Beg (Skanderbeg), in northern Albania.
1444
Ottomans defeat a crusader army at Varna.
1444–1446; 1451–1481
Mehmed II rules.
1453
Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
1459
Mehmed II orders the construction of Topkapi Palace.
1460–1461
Mehmed II orders the construction of the Covered Bazaar or Kapali Çarşi (Kapali Charshi) in Istanbul.
1460
Ottoman conquest of Morea.
1463
Ottomans capture Bosnia.
1469–1474
Ottoman pacification of Karaman.
1473
Mehmed II defeats Uzun Hassan, the chief of Aq Qoyunlu (Ak Koyunlu).
1478
Crimean Tatars accept Ottoman suzerainty.
1480
Ottoman conquest of Herzegovina.
1481
Death of Mehmed II.
1481–1512
Bayezid II rules.
1481–1483
War of Succession between Bayezid and Cem Sultan (Jem Sultan) ends with Bayezid’s victory.
1484
Bayezid II attacks Moldavia and captures Kilia and Akkerman.
1484–1491
Ottoman-Mamluk War.
1496
Ottomans enter Montenegro.
1497–1499
War with Poland.
1501
Shah Ismail seizes the throne of Iran and establishes the Safavid dynasty.
1504
Shah Ismail captures Baghdad.
1512
Selim I forces his father to abdicate.
1512–1520
Selim I rules.
1514
Selim I defeats Shah Ismail at the Battle of Chaldiran (Chalduran).
1516
Ottoman conquest of eastern Anatolia.
1516–1517
Selim I defeats the Mamluks and captures Syria and Egypt. The holy cities of Mecca and Medina fall under Ottoman rule.
1520–1566
Süleyman I rules.
1521
Ottomans capture Belgrade.
1522
Ottoman conquest of Rhodes.
1526
Süleyman I defeats the Hungarians at the Battle of Mohács.
1529
Süleyman I captures Buda.
1529
First Ottoman siege of Vienna.
1533–1555
War with Safavid Iran, culminating with the Treaty of Amasya.
1556
Construction of Süleymaniye mosque-complex begins.
1566–1574
Selim II rules.
1570
Ottomans capture Tunis and Nicosia.
1571
Ottomans are defeated at the Battle of Lepanto by the Holy League.
1571
Ottoman conquest of Cyprus.
1574–1595
Murad III rules.
1574
Selimiye mosque complex completed in Edirne.
1578–1590
War with Safavid Iran.
1590s
Celāli (Jelāli) Revolts against the Ottoman central government in Anatolia.
1593–1606
War with Habsburgs.
1595–1603
Mehmed III rules.
1596
Ottoman victory at Mezőkeresztes (Haçova).
1603–1617
Ahmed I rules.
1603–1618
War with Safavid Iran.
1603
Iran recovers Tabriz.
1604
Iran captures Yerevan, Kars, and Shirvan.
1606
Peace treaty between the Ottomans and Austrians at Zsitva-Torok.
1617
Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul is completed.
1617–1618
Mustafa I rules.
1618–1622
Osman II rules.
1622–1623
Mustafa I rules.
1624
Iranian forces capture Baghdad.
1623–1640
Murad IV rules.
1624–1639
War with Safavid Iran.
1638
Murad IV captures Baghdad.
1640–1648
Ibrahim rules.
1644–1669
Ottoman war with Venice over Crete.
1648–1687
Mehmed IV rules.
1656–1661
1660–1664
War with Habsburgs.
1661–1676
Fazil Ahmed Köprülü serves as the grand vizier.
1664
Ottoman forces are defeated near St. Gotthard.
1671–1672
War against Poland.
1683
Second Ottoman siege of Vienna.
1686
Habsburg forces capture Buda.
1687
Venetian forces invade Greece.
1687–1691
Süleyman II rules.
1688
Habsburg forces capture Belgrade.
1690
Ottoman forces recapture Belgrade.
1691–1695
Ahmed II rules.
1695–1703
Mustafa II rules.
1697
Ottomans are defeated near Zenta.
1699
Treaty of Karlowitz.
1703–1730
Ahmed III rules.
1709–1714
Charles XII of Sweden seeks refuge at the Ottoman court after his defeat at the hands of the Russians at Poltava.
1710–1711
War against Russia.
1715–1718
War against the Habsburgs and Venice.
1720s
Tulip Period.
1722
Fall of the Safavid dynasty in Iran.
1724
Ottoman Empire and Russia agree to partition northern and western Iran.
1724–1746
Ottoman military campaigns in Iran.
1730
Patrona Halil uprising.
1730–1754
Mahmud I rules.
1736–1747
Nader Shah Afshar rules Iran.
1739
Treaty of Belgrade.
1754–1757
Osman III rules.
1755
Nuruosmaniye Mosque is completed in Istanbul.
1757–1774
Mustafa III rules.
1768–1774
War with Russia culminates in the treaty of Küçük Kaynarça (Kuchuk Kaynarja).
1774–1789
Abdülhamid I rules.
1783
Russia annexes the Crimea.
1787–1792
War with Russia.
1788–1791
War with Austria.
1789–1807
Selim III rules.
1791
Selim III establishes the Nizam-i Cedid/Nizam-i Jedid (New Army).
1798
French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte invade Egypt.