One of the most powerful empires during the medieval period was the well-known “Turkish”. The Turks were a warrior people who in ancient times settled on the borders of the Chinese empire.They came into contact with the Arabs when they expanded to the East, became Islamized and entered as mercenaries in the service of the caliphs of Baghdad.
Lepanto
From the year 960, the Turkish tribes were forced to migrate to the west due to the threat of the Chinese emperor Tai Tsu.One of these tribes, that of the “chuz” attacked and shot down baghdad caliphate, seizing power. In the middle of the eleventh century they reached Asia Minor and provoked the western reaction that took shape in the crusades.
Another branch of the Turks, the Ottomans, caused the famous fall of the Byzantine Empire. Osman I (1281-1326) founder of the Ottoman dynasty, they converted to Islam and from 1308 they launched against Byzantium.Bayezid I (1389-1402) crushed a Crusader army in the Nicopolis (1396), Paradoxically, the intervention of an Eastern people, the Mongols, saved Christianity: Bayezid was defeated and taken prisoner by Tamerlane in the battle of ankara (1402). After the disaster, the Ottomans returned to the attack with Amurates II (1421-1451) who came to lay siege to Constantinople, but finally bought the withdrawal of the Turks.
With Muhammad II (1451-1481) the end of the Byzantine Empire, reduced almost to the capital. In the following assault on Constantinople, Constantine IX being emperor, the city succumbed after a ghastly siege.