by Lijun He

Created on: July 15, 2010

“The Ottomans are invading.”

If you were a solider living in Eastern Europe in the 16th century, you would despair upon hearing those dreaded words. You may try to defend your country, but you have little hope of winning. In your eyes, army of the Ottoman Empire was both invincible and endless.

The humble origins of the Ottoman Empire lay with the Turkish ruler of a small state in Anatolia named Osman I. Osman proceeded to expand his territory by taking over nearby states. The land that he conquered became known as the Ottoman Empire.

At the time of Osman’s death, the Ottoman Empire remained very small. But it continued to be expanded under Osman’s successors. His son, Orhan I, continued to conquer territory in Turkey, at the expense of other states and the Byzantine Empire. Latter, he moved into Gallipoli, which would be used as a base of operations to conquer most of Thrace. Lastly he also forced the Byzantine Empire to acknowledge his conquests.

In the 150 years between 1300 and 1451, the Ottoman Empire rapidly expanded to dominate turkey and establish a firm position in Eastern Europe.  Upon winning the battle of Adrianople in 1365, the Ottoman Empire was free to threaten the Balkan states. In the next fifteen years, the Ottomans won a series of battles against Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, and Macedonia. In the aftermath, they reduced these once-prominent nations to vassals.

The Ottomans proceeded to threaten Luxembourg, whose king sought to from an anti-Ottoman Alliance. When Bulgaria responded positively to Luxembourg, they were partially annexed by the Ottomans. The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid, continued to expand the Ottoman Empire by advancing on Greece, which accepted Ottoman rule, and Wallachia, which despite winning against the Ottomans, accepted Vassal status in order to prevent future invasions.

Around this time, the nations of Europe finally realized that the Ottomans were a danger to their independence, and an alliance was formed between France, Hungary, and Wallachia. Their combined armies marched through Bulgaria, past the Danube, and fought the Ottomans at Nikopol. They were defeated, and the Ottoman Empire responded by annexing the rest of Bulgaria, and later Albania. At this time, Europe proved to be unable to match the Ottoman Empire.

A brief respite came to Europe in 1402, as Bayezid withdrew to Anatolia to deal with an Mongol invasion of his own nation. He fought against the Mongols in the Battle of Ankara, but

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