Ottoman Civil War (1403–1413)

Ottoman Civil War (1403–1413)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Four sons of Sultan Bayazid I of
the Ottoman Empire

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Ottoman Empire

DECLARATION: None

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: Succession to the
Ottoman sultanate

OUTCOME: After a long civil war, one son emerged
victorious and ruled as Muhammad I.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:
Unknown

CASUALTIES: Unknown

TREATIES: None

When Sultan Bayazid I (1347–1403) was killed at the Battle
of Angora in 1403, his death began a period known as
the Interregnum, during which four of his six sons tore
the fledgling Ottoman Empire apart in their quest for
domination of the sultanate. Muhammad, or Mehmed I
(1389–1421), captured Karaman and made this city his
stronghold. Süleyman (d. 1411) had control of the empire’s
European territories. Both Isa Bey (d. 1405) and
Mustafa, or Musa Bey (d. 1413), took territories in Anatolia
Turkey.
Süleyman struck an alliance with the Byzantine
Empire in 1405 and met Isa in battle. Defeating Isa’s
army, he strangled his brother. Mustafa attacked Süleyman
in 1406, fighting him and the Byzantine co-emperor
John VIII Palaeologue (1390–1448) in Thrace. When
Mustafa’s Serbian and Bulgarian allies fled the field, however,
Süleyman was able to take Adrianople (Edirne), the
Ottoman European capital. Mustafa regrouped, assembling
an army of Turks and Wallachians, against Adrianople.
In the course of the battle, Mustafa persuaded
Süleyman’s contingent of Janissaries to defect to his side,
and Süleyman was captured. Mustafa had him strangled
as well.
After the death of Süleyman, Mustafa laid siege to
Constantinople but suffered defeat at sea. Despite this
loss, Mustafa was still more powerful than Muhammad
and was dominant in the region. He attacked Serbia in
1406 and conquered Salonika, blinding its ruler, a son of
Süleyman. Muhammad, however, with a large Turkish
force and allied with the Byzantines, lifted Mustafa’s siege
of Constantinople and regained the loyalty of the Janissaries.
He waged unremitting war on Mustafa, fighting
him in three separate battles before he definitively defeated
his brother in 1413. Like Isa and Süleyman, Mustafa
was executed by strangulation. Muhammad I
assumed the Ottoman throne and set about rebuilding the
empire.

Further reading: Ducas, Decline and Fall of Byzantium
to the Ottoman Turks, trans. Harry J. Magonlias. (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1975); Jason Goodwin,
Lords of the Horizon: A History of the Ottoman Empire (New
York: Picador, 2003); Colin Imber, Ottoman Empire:
1300–1650 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Halil
Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600
(London: Phoenix Press, 2001).