The Ottoman Turks Trivia Quiz

Answer: Anatolia

Most historians believe that the people who became known as the Ottoman Turks left Central Asia during the period of Mongol invasions in the 1200s, and settled in the western part of Anatolia, which is approximately modern-day Turkey. Over time the Ottoman Empire stretched from North Africa, Western Asia, and Southern and Eastern Europe.

At the peak of their power in 1683, the Ottomans ruled approximately 2 million square miles (5.2 square kilometers) of territory - an estimated 4% of the world's land, comparable in size to the ancient empire of Alexander the Great.

Answer: Osman

While it was Osman's father, Ertuğrul, who led that exodus of the Ottomans from Central Asia, it was Osman who is credited with being the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. In fact, some believe Osman's birth name was actually the Turkish "Ataman", so it's easy to see how his Turks were named.

The name Osman, Arabic in origin, was probably adopted later in life. Osman, who ruled c.1299-1323, is considered to be the first sultan of the Ottoman Empire, although the title of "sultan" was not used until later.

Answer: Bey

The word "bey" was Turkish and meant "tribal leader"; a bey ruled a beylik, which was a small principality. As more Turkish groups fled the Mongol invasions, there was eventually an estimated twelve beyliks in the western part of modern-day Turkey. The people called Ottoman Turks today, led by their bey, Ertuğrul, established themselves in Söğüt.

The area around the town was actually controlled by the Seljuk Turks at the time, and was located on the outer fringes of the Byzantine Empire. It is believed that Ertuğrul's son, the founder of the Ottoman Empire, was born in Söğüt sometime around 1254. Over time, as other titles were used, a bey became a title for a military or administrative officer.

The more commonly known title of the Ottoman emperor, "sultan", was adopted sometime in the 1000s.

Answer: Constantinople

As the empire ruled by the Ottoman Turks expanded, they moved closer and closer to the land that had been claimed by the Byzantine Empire. When the Byzantine city of Bursa fell in 1326, it signaled the end of Byzantine control in northern Turkey. As Ottoman expansion continued to be successful, it wasn't very long before the conquest of the city of Constantinople became a reasonable objective; the city had been gravely weakened during the Fourth Crusade and hadn't really recovered. In addition it is estimated that the Black Death that ravaged Europe from 1346-49 killed about half of the city's population.

The Ottoman leader, Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror, took advantage of a disagreement between the eastern and western Christian churches and the fact that he had at his disposal a huge cannon that would shoot 1200-pound cannon balls. The siege of the city lasted for 53 days before it was taken. Mehmed II made Constantinople his new capital. Many different names were used for the city during Ottoman rule, but eventually it became known as Istanbul.

Answer: Suleiman

Suleiman was also the longest-ruling leader of the Ottoman Turks, serving for almost 46 years from 1520-66. He was quite a magnificent conqueror, and that sobriquet was given to him by people in the West. He amassed an empire that was located on three continents, and covered approximately 877,888 square miles, making Suleiman one of the most powerful rulers in Europe at the time. His reign is considered to represent the peak of the Ottoman Empire.

Suleiman's own people, however, called him "Kanuni", or "The Lawgiver". His legal reforms created more of a balance between the sultan's law (Kanun) and the Sharia, or religious law. It was a difficult task to create new laws that did not diminish the importance of Islamic religious laws, but his code, commonly called the Ottoman Laws, was used for three hundred years.

Answer: Sultanate of Women

Actually, as you can see from the dates, the Sultanate of Women began before the death of Suleiman the Magnificent. He was the first leader to be officially married; earlier sultans had simply selected from a harem of slaves. If the concubine produced a son, she was sent with him to the area he ruled. Sulieman's wife, Hurrem Sultan, or Roxelana, was not only given her freedom from slavery, but made the imperial consort. She participated in charitable endeavors, and when she died it became the practice to call the wives of the sultan, Haseki Sultans, and the mothers of the sultan, Valide Sultans.

The Sultanate of Women came to control considerable political and social power, influencing much of the everyday goings on of the empire. It is believed that rivalries between different women put an end to the Sultanate around 1656.

Answer: Battle of Vienna

Vienna had a great location with both sea and overland trade routes, and the Ottomans planned and strategized for quite some time before attempting to take the city after their first attempt ended in failure in 1529. The people in the city, however, also had a plan for protecting their city, and were not going to give in to the Ottomans, who had proven that they could not be trusted with negotiations.

The Battle of Vienna took place in September 1683 between the forces of the Ottoman Turks and the Holy Roman Empire, after the city been besieged by Ottoman forces for almost two months. Considered to be the most disastrous defeat of the Ottoman Empire since its founding, the key to success was the formation of an alliance between the Holy Roman Empire (Hapsburgs) and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Ottomans never successfully expanded into Europe again, and lost some of their European territory during the fighting that ensued following the Battle of Vienna.

Answer: European countries refused to ally with the Greeks.

The Greeks came to be ruled by the Ottomans after the fall of the Byzantine Empire; over the years many unsuccessful attempts had been made to gain independence. The Filiki Eteria, a Greek revolutionary organization, made plans to attack three places in the Ottoman Empire on March 25, 1821, but had to change their strategy and begin sooner after their strategy was uncovered by the Ottomans.

On April 21, 1821, Easter Sunday, Sultan Mahmud II turned his fury toward Gregory V, the Patriarch of Constantinople; Gregory was Greek, but had tried to preach against the revolution. It appeared that Greeks would lose due to their lack of internal unity; they had successfully laid siege to the Acropolis in 1821-1822 (First Siege of the Acropolis), but the city fell back to the Turks in 1826 during the Second Siege of the Acropolis. After the fall of Athens, Russia, Britain, and France began to send naval reinforcements to the Greeks in 1827. After the Ottoman fleet was virtually destroyed at the Battle of Navarino (1827), the tide began to turn in favor of the Greeks. Greece was recognized as an independent country in 1830.

Answer: Russia

The immediate cause of the Crimean War involved a decision regarding who would protect the rights of Christians who were living in Palestine, which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Should it be the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church? But what was the underlying cause? Russia wanted to take advantage of Ottoman weakness at the time in order to expand its empire, and France and the UK wanted to maintain the status quo in Europe.

By the end of the war, Russia was defeated and humiliated, and had to agree to return land that had been taken from the Ottomans and demilitarize the Black Sea. France and the UK had fought a war that was extremely unpopular in their respective countries but had been successful in checking Russian expansion and protecting their trade routes.

Answer: They had signed a secret treaty with Germany.

You may remember that the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary upset the uneasy balance of power in Europe on June 28, 1914. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, the country of assassin Gavrillo Princip, and when Russia mobilized its troops to protect Serbia, Germany declared war on Russia. The pre-war alliances that had been formed drew many countries into the conflict - whether they wanted to participate or not.

The Ottoman Turks by this time were very weak, and needed an ally. Their old friends Britain and France had joined the Triple Entente (Allies) with Russia, and the Ottomans wanted no part of that. In August of 1914, they made an agreement with Germany called the German-Ottoman Alliance that allowed for the use of Ottoman territory for trade and for travel to Germany's African colonies. When Germany declared war on Russia, this agreement pulled the Ottomans into the conflict.