Essay Example on Anglo Turkish encounters during the Crusades

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This paper aims to give two examples of Anglo Turkish encounters during the Crusades and briefly touch upon their significance and their details The first encounter I am about to depict is about Crusaders encounter with Kilij Arslan and the second one is about Bayezid who gave me the inspiration for the title of this paper In the last part by the respect of my task the paper aims to demonstrate the views of an Anglo writer about Turkish women First we need to be sure that there is no certain evidence when was the very first encounter of the Anglos and Turks Therefore we assume that our first encounter with English was the Crusades In November 1095 Papa Clement in a preach stated that Jarusalem is sacred for the Christianity and should be taken from the Muslims back Pope's this request accepted by most of the Europe and Christianity world England was also the most powerful one that accepted Pope s request Robert Curthose as the brother of the Normandian king of England William II became the commander of the English soldiers and joined the 1st Crusades in 1096 He was a noble was not alone on this journey there were many nobles around him from all over the kingdom In July 1096 he and his army encountered with the Turks for the first time Seljuk Turks commander was Sultan Kilij Arslan Curthose in this encounter experienced the courage of the Turks for the very first time Kilij Arslan was known for his intelligence His brave army and Arslan s well organized tactical maneuvers led the Crusaders to an inevitable defeat Kilij Arslan in the end faced with the necessity of retreat since a vast number of Crusaders came to help of Curthose Even though Curthose was about to flee the history generally mentions about his brave stance against such an enemy with great battling skills


As the title of this paper is The Unexpected Encounter I want to mention about one specific event The second encounter I want to depict is the Battle of Nigbolu In this battle The Order of Hospitallers an army that contains the members of six nations came by the Aegean Sea as a reinforcement to Crusaders Since their army involved with a garrison of English soldiers The Order of Hospitallers can be shown as an evidence to clarify English were participated in this battle and again Anglo Turkish encounter occurred Nigbolu was both an important transition point and a river harbor Its castle was in a strategic point and on its walls soldiers were able to see the river Crusaders and the Hospitallers surrounded the castle on 10th of September in 1396 and they decided not to engage thus stocks of food and water of the Turks would run out But they were mistaken about something The commander of the Castle Dogan Bey had already sent a unite to inform their Sultan And the intelligence of the Ottoman Empire was successful to inform Sultan Yildirim Bayezid Ist about the invaders As the Sultan s name is Yıldırım means Lightning Bayezid worthy of his name immediately hit the road with the Ottoman Army and reached Nigbolu from Edirne about in 24 hours


At night the darkness helped Bayezid to came by the castle and he commanded Dogan Bey to resist until the dawn Commander Dogan Bey replied his Sultan and told him that they have no chance to lose the castle in front of their Sultan On September 25th some self confident troops of the Crusaders defeated by the sudden raid of the Ottoman Cavalries Afterwards elite and well armored Hospitallers gave some casualties to the Ottoman Empire but when the major Ottoman Army take the flag they nearly destroyed all the Crusaders and the Order of Hospitallers along with famous commanders and took some of them as hostages like the commander Jean de Vienne aka Fearless During his time as a hostage Jean de Vienne took an oath and swore that he will never draw a sword against an Ottoman again Bayezid after Vienne s vow set him free and released him from his oath since he wants him to come again and give him another glory During my research I learned that an English writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu whose husband assigned as an ambassador to Istanbul and she went after her husband between 1716 1718 Since she was a writer she wrote some letters about her observation during his journey In this very paragraph I am willing to depict a part of one of her letters in order to give a solid proof about her opinions on Ottoman women Lady Mary Montagu in her writings mentioned about Ottoman harem hamam and considered the Oriental women in many aspects As a wife of the ambassador she had some privileges like being able to enter the palace and the harem Unlike the writers in her period who considered Oriental women as slaves she was able to narrate the Ottoman woman in the true perspective

Therefore England started to understand that in Ottoman Empire women are not slaves but they have their own free will the Turkish ladies who are perhaps freer than any ladies in the universe and are the only women in the world that lead a life of uninterrupted pleasure exempt from cares their whole time being spent in visiting bathing or agreeable amusement of spending money and inventing new fashions Montagu 1993 136 To sum up during the research my very findings pointed out that It is impossible to know how many times Anglo Turkish nations encountered and again it is impossible to know how the events exactly happened but the statement of Lady Montagu clearly shows her opinion on Turkish which is she considered the Turkish women as freer than the English women


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