The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

The rise of Ottoman power was, of course, swifter and more spectacular than its decline. Orkhan (1326-1359), the son of the dynasty’s founder, exploited factional strife in the Byzantine Empire to gain himself a solid bridgehead on the European shore of the Dardanelles. In 1389 the destruction of Serbian power on the famous field of Kossovo opened most of southeastern Europe to the Ottoman invaders. In 1453 the Sultan Mohammed II, the Conqueror (1451-1481), stormed Constantinople, then defeating Venice, the great naval power of the Eastern Mediterranean, overran Albania and Bosnia; he also seized the Crimea and the adjacent Black Sea coasts. With the occupation of Constantinople and the extinction of the Paleologus dynasty, the Ottoman Empire became the political heir of Byzantium and took over many of its administrative institutions, along with the refinements and the vices of Byzantine civilization.

Peaceful muslims!