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Campaigns

The new era began with the conquest of Constantinople of Sultan Mehmed II but this was not his only success, he was a talented military leader in his campaigns too... While Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople served all the above purposes, it was also a political and strategic necessity.

Sultan Mehmed II’s first campaigns after Constantinople were in the direction of Serbia who was an Ottoman vassal since the Battle of Kosovo. After his sieges the land returned to the sultan’s subjugation. In the area of the Black Sea, Mehmed was also successful. He had forced tribute from the various Genoese colonies, later occuping them outright. Crimea became a vassal state of the Empire by making the entire sea virtually an Ottoman lake.

At his era, Ottoman’s most powerful enemies were Hungary in land and Venice at sea. Both enemies of Ottomans didn’t want to fight with the empire in single combat. Mehmed the Conqueror marched towards Morea and captured the cities of Greece one after another. However, he was threatened from the rear by the principality of Karaman and therefore turned to Anatolia to vanquish them and to annex their territory. He then conquered the area close to western Black Sea and appointed as governor Kızıl Ahmet who was the founder of the principality Isfen-diyar.

Afterwards, Sultan Mehmed II fought with Uzun Hasan, the ruler of the Akkoyunlus and overcame him. In 1472, Hasan’s forces raided the city of Tokat and marched well into western Anatolia. Among those areas that fell to Mehmet II were Serbia, Greece, the Empire of Trezibizond, Wallachia, Bosnia, Karaman, Albania and several Venetian and Geneose maritime establishments.

Mehmed spent his years preparing to meet more renewed challenges. He built a lively capital of a growing Ottoman Empire that would be a ruler and major world power over the next centuries. He was just beginning new campaigns to capture Rhodes Island and southern Italy when he died suddenly in 1481.

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