The History of Turkey
The Turkish started to settle in Anatolia in the early 11th century
A.D. by continual migration and invasions.
The Malazgirt victory in 1071 A.D. against the
Byzantines, opened up the gates of Anatolia to
the Turkic. It is following this date that they
fully conquered the whole of Anatolia and
established the Anatolian Seljuk State there.
This was the first Turkish State in Anatolia
and was sometimes called, “The Konya
Sultanate”. The Seljuk State rapidly declined with the Mongol invasion of
Anatolia which started in 1243 A.D. During the period of the decline of the
Anatolian Seljuk state and after its
disappearance, many Turcoman
principalities were established in
Anatolia towards the end of the
thirteenth century. One of these was
the Ottoman Beylik, it was named
after its founder, a Turkish ruler
named Osman in 1299 A.D. in the area
of Söğüt in Eskişehir in the
northwestern corner of the peninsula. The Ottoman Beylik rapidly
expanded throughout the fourteenth century and thus arose the Ottoman
Empire, which ruled over a vast territory on three continents and lasted
for 623 years until the end of WWI (“A Brief Outline of Turkish History”).
The Romans invaded Turkey and by the middle of the first century
B.C., they controlled all of Anatolia. ​In 324 B.C. Constantine I moved the
capital of the Roman Empire to the ancient city of Byzance and renamed it
Constantinople. This move divided the empire into two segments, the East
and the West. Constantinople became
the capital of the Eastern Roman or
Byzantine Empire​ (“Turkey - History &
Background”).
Turkey formally entered World War I
on October 28, 1914 when they bombed
of Russian Black Sea ports. The Triple
Entente, or Allied Powers, declared
war on the Ottoman Empire on
November 4, 1914. Two major factors
led to Ottoman involvement on the
side of the Central Powers: German pressure, and the opportunism of
Turkish minister of war, Enver Pasha. The
German military mission of 1913 to Turkey
when Liman von Sanders organized the Turkish
army and navy under German leadership and
brought forth the Turco-German Alliance (“The
Ottoman Empire Enters WW1 on the side of the
Central Powers”).