Ottoman Civil War (1481–1482)

Ottoman Civil War (1481–1482)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: Bayazid II vs. Djem

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Ottoman Empire

DECLARATION: None

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: Succession to the
Ottoman sultanate following the death of Muhammad II
the Conqueror

OUTCOME: Djem was defeated several times and
ultimately fled to Rhodes, where he was imprisoned for
the rest of his life.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:
Unknown

CASUALTIES: Unknown

TREATIES: None

Although Sultan Muhammad, or Mehmed II (the Conqueror;
1429–1481) had greatly expanded the Ottoman
Empire, leaving a firm foundation for the great future conquests
of the 16th-century sultans, his death left unresolved
many of the problems caused by his internal policies. The
taxes he had imposed to finance his conquests, for example,
had led during the last year of his reign to a virtual civil war
in Constantinople between major factions of the janissaries
and the Turkish aristocracy. Muhammad’s son, Bayazid
(1447–1513), left Amaysa to assume the throne at the
behest of the Janissaries, who dominated the capital militarily
and whom Bayazid had courted with promises of a full
amnesty for their rebellion and an increase in pay for their
services, the latter always a key attraction for mercenary
troops. Bayazid II’s first act was to kill the grand vizier, who
had backed the other candidate for Muhammad’s throne,
Djem (1459–95), governor of Karaman and Bayazid’s
younger brother, who had already been proclaimed sultan
in the old Ottoman capital of Bursa. Djem proposed to his
brother that Bayazid rule Ottoman Europe and let Djem
assume control of Anatolia. Bayazid rejected this proposal.
He then managed to conciliate the nobility with his essentially
pacific plans for consolidating his father’s empire,
which downgraded the Janissaries. Bereft of his major support,
Djem nevertheless came to fight. The two met in battle
at Yenishehr in 1481. Defeated, Djem fled into exile in
Mamluk Syria in the summer of 1481. In Cairo, he regrouped,
and, in 1482, renewed his attack on Bayazid II,
this time with Mamluk aid. Djem failed, however, to recruit
support in Karaman, where the Turkoman nomads he had
hoped to rally were instead attracted to Bayazid’s heterodoxy.
Consequently, Djem was again defeated by his
brother. This time, he fled to Rhodes, where the Knights
Hospitalers kept him a captive—apparently at the request of
Bayazid II, who paid them an annual fee for the service.
However, another condition of Djem’s captivity—either
explicit or understood—was that the Ottomans refrain from
attacking Europe. For 13 years, Bayazid II left Europe
unmolested, fearing that the Knights Hospitalers would
release Djem. Upon Djem’s death (by poisoning, probably
on Bayazid’s orders), Bayazid launched the VENETIAN-TURKISHWAR
(1499–1503).

Further reading: 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).