18 Facts About Orhan

Orhan only accepted as his share the revenues of a single village near Bursa.

Orhan organised for the Ottoman Beylik a standing army of regularly paid and disciplined infantry and horses, a full century before Charles VII of France established his fifteen permanent companies of men-at-arms, which are generally regarded as the first modern standing army.

Orhan claimed that incorporating children of the conquered would induce other people to enlist: their friends and relations, who would come as volunteers to join the Ottoman ranks.

Orhan then sent a column under Konur Alp towards the west Black Sea coast; another column under Akca Koca to capture Kocaeli, and finally a column under Abdurrahman Ghazi to capture the southeast coast of the Sea of Marmara.

Once Bursa was captured, Orhan sent cavalry towards the Bosphorus, capturing Byzantine towns on the Marmara coast.

Orhan gave the command of Nicomedia to his eldest son, Suleyman Pasha, who had directed the operations of the siege.

In 1338, Orhan captured Scutari; most of northwest Anatolia was in Ottoman hands.

Orhan did not continue with any other conquests in Anatolia except taking over Ankara from the commercial-religious fraternity guild of Ahis.

Orhan aspired to attach the Ottoman forces permanently to his interests, and hoped to achieve this by giving his second daughter, Theodora, in marriage to their ruler, despite differences of creed and the disparity of age.

Orhan opposed the Venetians, whose fleets and piratical raids were disrupting his seaward provinces, and who had met his diplomatic overtures with contempt.

The Venetians were allies of John VI, so Orhan sent an auxiliary force across the straits to Galata, which there co-operated with the Genoese.

Orhan started to settle migrant Turcomans and town-dwelling Turks in the strategic city and castle of Gelibolu, which had been devastated by a severe earthquake and was therefore evacuated by its inhabitants.

The emperor pleaded with his son-in-law Orhan to meet personally and discuss the matter, but the request was either rejected or could not be carried out due to Orhan's age and ill-health.

Orhan was the longest living and one of the longest reigning of the future Ottoman Sultans.

Orhan was very much upset by this kidnapping and conducted talks with his brother-in-law and now sole Byzantine Emperor John V Palaeologos.

Orhan was said to have been greatly affected by the death of his son.

Orhan died in 1362, in Bursa, at the age of eighty, after a reign of thirty-six years.

Orhan is buried in the turbe with his wife and children, called Gumuslu Kumbet in Bursa.