Ottoman Caesars

Originally posted by Tyranos The Turks at the time were seeking to imitate the glory of Rome and saw themselves its rightful heirs to the complete Roman Empire, after taking of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Turks were devastated on the shores of Southern Italy, they met fanatical and determined resistance.   The Western Empire disolved after Romulus Augustulus, but the Pope remained the central figure with retaining still the mainly Romaized Germanic chieftains under his power by dangling the imperial Crown before their very eyes. Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire were frauds with papal support, the Ottomans were another group of frauds. But the process of naming themselves Caesar and seeing themselves as Romans, didnt end in the Middle Ages or such..continued on into modern times, under the titles of Kaiser and Czar ect.

Originally posted by kurt Originally posted by Imperatore Dario I Originally posted by Catt It would have helped Mehmet a little if he had taken Rome itself. I would doubt it. The pope would call for a crusade to drive the Turks out, calling them invaders who illegally seized Rome, etc, etc.   He did. But noone answered after what happened to the last crusading army who fought against the Ottomans (battle of Varna, 1444).   Originally posted by Tyranos The Turks at the time were seeking to imitate the glory of Rome and saw themselves its rightful heirs to the complete Roman Empire, after taking of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Turks were devastated on the shores of Southern Italy, they met fanatical and determined resistance.     Actually they captured and occupied the city of Otranto, and were planning to advance up the Italian peninsula and conquer the whole thing. The pope, after having his calls for a crusade were ignored, even fled Rome. After the Sultan died a year later, however, the plan for both the capture of Italy and the island of Rhodes disintegrated.     If someone could could conform what I'm writing, that would be great, otherwise the two profoundly eurocentric and in my opinion inaccurate quotes above would be accepted as fact.

Otranto was occupied by the turkish forces with a surprise. The defenders fought heroicly but they were unable to hinder the turks from occupying the castle. Turks were led by Gedik Ahmet Paşa, a remarkable and diciplined commander. Their goal was to take a fort and make their operations from that base. But the news of the sultans death arrived and Gedik Ahmed Paşa had to cancel the operation because of CEM and BAYAZIDS throne claims. After a couple of years he was dead in this fight. The ottomans were in a civil war and they couldnt give any attention to italy. Totally 1500 ottoman soldiers were garrisoned in otranto. And my friends, for 1,5 year they werent even attacked by a christian army. Otranto was taken by Ferrante with the help of hungarian mercenaries. After the capture the turks fought for Ferrante.

Originally posted by ihsan They were adressing them as Greek to show them "out of Christianity".  Remember Orthodox - Catholic rivalery. The term Greek was a symbol of being pagan. It was Karl the Great who for the first time called the (Eastern) Roman Emperor as the "Greek Emperor". And the Catholic-Orthodox division wasn't around in the early 9th century