Historical Reference

Ertoghrul father of the Ottoman Turks

The following is from Creasy who took Von Hammer and distilled his 8 volumns down to 2. The initial story of Ertoghrul of coming to the aid of Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin against the Mongol weaves truth with a healthy dose of "Spin" as we now call it. Ertoghrul and his father were driven out of Armenia by the Mongols and the bulk of their followers deserted them when Ertoghurl's father Soleyman Shah drowned crossing the Euphrates. The idea that Ertoghrul just happened to pick the Seljuk without knowing who was who is not plausable. A Turk could tell the difference between Mongols and Turks instinctively. Ertoghrul attacked the Mongols to aid the Seljuk because if the Seljuk were destroyed Ertoghrul would be next. Still when we understand that then this history is extremely valuable.

With some of the clues here we can nail down when Ertoghrul came to the aid of the Seljuk Sultan Kai Kobad. Kai Kobad can only refer to Seljuk Sultak Ala-al-din Kay-Kubad I who ruled from 1219 to 1336. Since the first clash with the Mongols 1. came in 1235-6 the last year of Kai Kobad's reign then this was when Ertoghrul would have had his only chance to support Kai Kobad against the Mongol. It is interesting to note that Kia Kobad submitted as a vassal to the Mongols but they still attacked.

1. Kai Kobad, the seventh successor of Suliman, was on the throne in 1235-6, when a Mongol envoy, named Shems ud din, went to his Court, bearing a yarligh or Imperial order summoning him to submit, which he accordingly did. Notwithstanding this, a body of 10,000 Mongols invaded his dominions.
History of the Mongols From The 9th to the 19th Century. Part III. The Mongols of Persia. By Henry H. Howorth, M.P. Longmans, Green, And Co and New York: 15 East 16th Street. 1888.

HISTORYOF THE OTTOMAN TURKS. CHAPTER I.

FIEST APPEARANCE AND EXPLOITS OF THE OTTOMAN TURKS UNDER ERTOGHRUL IN ASIA MINOR—THEIR SETTLEMENT AT SULTAN-CENI—REIGN OF Othman I.—HIS DREAM—HIS CONQUESTS—DEATH AND CHARACTER.*

About six centuries ago, a pastoral band of four hundred Turkish families was journeying westward from the upper streams of the river Euphrates. Their armed force consisted of four hundred and forty-four horsemen; and their leader's name was Ertoghrul, which means “The Right-Hearted Man." As they traveled through Asia Minor, they came in sight of a field of battle, on which two armies of unequal numbers were striving for the mastery. Without knowing who the combatants were, The Right-Hearted Man took instantly the chivalrous resolution to aid the weaker party : and charging desperately and victoriously with his warriors upon the larger host, he decided the fortune of the day. Such, according to the Oriental historian Neschri,* is the first recorded exploit of that branch of the Turkish race, which from Ertoghrul's son, Othman, has been called the nation of the Ottoman Turks. And in this, their earliest feat of arms, which led to the foundation of their empire, we may trace the same spirit of haughty generosity, that has been their characteristic down to our own times.

* See Von Hammer, books 1 and 2. Vol. i. B

The little band of Ertoghrul was a fragment of a tribe of Oghuz Turks, which, under Ertoghrul's father, Soleyman Shah, had left their settlements in Khorasan, and sojourned for a time in Armenia. After a few years, they left this country also; and were following the course of the Euphrates towards Syria, when their leader was accidentally drowned in that river. The greater part of the tribe then dispersed ; but a little remnant of it followed two of Solyman's sons, Ertoghrul and Dundar, who determined to seek a dwelling-place in Asia Minor, under the Seljuk Turk, Alaeddin, the Sultan of Iconium. It so happened, that it was Alaeddin himself who commanded the army to which Ertoghrul and his warriors brought such opportune succor on the battle-field, whither their march in

* Neschri states this on the authority of Mevlana Ayas, who had heard the battle narrated by the stirrup-holder of Ertoghrul's grandson Orchan, who had heard it from Ertoghrul himself, and had told it to his followers. See Von Hammer's note to p. 62 of his first volume.

quest of Alaeddin had casually led them. The adversaries, from whose superior force they delivered him, were a host of Mongols, the deadliest enemies of the Turkish race. Alaeddin, in gratitude for this eminent service, bestowed on Ertoghrul a principality in Asia Minor, near the frontiers of the Bithynian province of the Byzantine Emperors.

The rich plains of Saguta along the left bank of the river Sakaria, and the higher districts on the slopes of the Ermeni mountains, became now the pasture-grounds of the father of Othman. The town of Saguta, or Saegud, was his also. Here he, and the shepherd- warriors who had marched with him from Khorasan and Armenia, dwelt as denizens of the land. Ertoghrul's force of fighting men was largely recruited by the best and bravest of the old inhabitants, who became his subjects ; and, still more advantageously, by numerous volunteers of kindred origin to his own.; The Turkish race * had been extensively spread through Lower Asia long before the time of Ertoghrul. Quitting their primitive abodes on the upper steppes of the Asiatic continent, tribe after tribe of that martial family of nations had poured down upon the rich lands and tempting wealth of the southern and western regions, when the power of the early Khalifs had decayed like that of the Greek Emperors. One branch of the Turks, called the Seljuk, from their traditionary patriarch Seljuk Khan, had acquired and consolidated a mighty empire, more than two centuries before the name of the Ottomans was heard. The Seljuk Turks were once masters of nearly all Asia Minor, of Syria, of Mesopotamia, Armenia, part of Persia, and Western Turkestan : and their great Sultans, Tughril Beg, Alp Arslan, and Melek Shah, are among the most renowned conquerors that stand forth in Oriental and in Byzantine history. But, by the middle of the thirteenth century of the Christian era, when Ertoghrul appeared on the battle-field in Asia Minor, the great fabric of Seljuk dominion had been broken up by the assaults of the conquering Mongols, aided by internal corruption and civil strife. The Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin reigned in ancient pomp at Konya, the old Iconium ; but his effective supremacy extended over a narrow compass, compared with the ample sphere throughout which his predecessors had exacted obedience. The Mongols had rent away the southern and eastern acquisitions of his race. In the centre and south of Asia Minor other Seljuk chiefs ruled various territories as independent princes; and the Greek Emperors of Constantinople had recovered a considerable portion of the old Roman provinces in the north and east of that peninsula. Amid the general tumult of border warfare, and of ever recurring peril from roving armies of Mongols, which pressed upon Alaeddin, the settlement in his dominions of a loyal chieftain and hardy clan, such as Ertoghrul and his followers, was a welcome accession of strength ; especially as the new comers were, like the Seljuk Turks, zealous adherents of the Moslem faith. The Crescent was the device that Alaeddin bore on his banners; Ertoghrul, as Alaeddin's vice-regent, assumed the same standard ; and it was by Ertoghrul's race that the Crescent was made for centuries the terror of Christendom, as the sign of aggressive Islam, and as the chosen emblem of the conquering Ottoman power.

There was little peace in Ertoghrul's days on the frontier near which he had obtained his first grants of land. Ertoghrul had speedy and frequent opportunities for augmenting his military renown, and for .gratifying his followers with the spoils of successful forays and assaults. The boldest Turkish adventurers flocked eagerly to the banner of the new and successful chieftain of their race ; and Alaeddin gladly recognized the value of his feudatory's services by fresh honors and marks of confidence, and by increased donations of territory.

In a battle which Ertoghrul, as Alaeddin's lieutenant, fought against a mixed army of Greeks and Mongols, between Brusa and Yenishehr, he drew up his troops so as to throw forward upon the enemy a cloud of light cavalry, called Akindji ; thus completely masking the centre of the main army, which, as the post of honor, was termed the Sultan's station. Ertoghrul held the centre himself, at the head of the four hundred and forty-four horsemen, who were his own original followers, and whose scimitars had won the day for Alaeddin, when they first charged unconsciously in his cause. The system now adopted by Ertoghrul of wearying the enemy by collision with a mass of irregular troops, and then pressing him with a reserve of the best soldiers, was for centuries the favorite tactic of his descendants. The battle in which he now employed it was long and obstinate; but in the end the Turkish chief won a complete victory. Alaeddin, on being informed of this achievement of his gallant and skilful vassal, bestowed on him the additional territory of Eskisehir, and in memory of the mode in which Ertoghrul had arrayed his army, Alaeddin gave to his principality the name of Sultan-CEni, which means " Sultan's Front."

The territory which received that name, and still bears it, as one of the Sanjaks, or minor governments of the Ottoman empire, is nearly identical with the ancient Phrygia Epictetus. It was rich in pasturage, both in its alluvial meadows and along its mountain slopes. It contained also many fertile corn lands and vineyards; and the romantic beauty of every part of its thickly wooded and well-watered highlands still attracts the traveler’s admiration. Besides numerous villages, it contained, in Ertoghrul's time, the strongholds of Karadjahissar, Biledjik, Inaeni, and others; and the cities or towns of Eskisehir (so celebrated in the history of the crusades under its old name of Dorylaeum), Seid-e-ghari, Lefke, and Saegud, near which is the domed tomb of Ertoghrul, an object still of the deepest veneration to frequent pilgrims from all parts of the Ottoman empire. Many of the places that have been mentioned, were, at the time when Alaeddin, as their titular sovereign, made grant of them to Ertoghrul, held by chieftains, who were practically independent, and who little heeded the sovereign's transfer of their lands and towns. It was only after long years of warfare carried on by Ertoghrul and his more renowned son, Othman, that Sultan-CEni became the settled possession of their house.

Othman, or, according to the oriental orthography, Osman, is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman empire ; and it is from him that the Turks, who inhabit it, call themselves Osmanlis, the only national appellation which they recognize. Ertoghrul never professed to act, save as the vassal and lieutenant of the Sultan of Iconium. But Othman, after the death of the last Alaeddin in 1307, waged wars and accumulated dominions as an independent potentate. He had become chief of his race twelve years before, on Ertoghrul's death, in 1288. Othman, at his succession, was twenty-four years of age, and was already of proved skill as a leader, and of tried prowess as a combatant. His early fortunes and exploits are favorite subjects with the oriental writers, especially his love adventures in wooing and winning the fair Malkhatoon. These legends have probably been colored by the poetical pens, that have recorded them in later years; but it is less improbable that they should be founded on fact, than that no similar traditions should have been handed down by the children and followers of so renowned a chief, as the founder of the Ottoman Empire."

History of  The Ottoman Turks: From The Beginning Of Their Empire To The Present Time. Chiefly Founded On Von Hammer. By E. S. Creasy, M.A. Professor Of History In University College, London; Late Fellow Of King's College, Cambridge. In Two Volumes. London:
Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street, 1854.

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