Note 40 — Chapter I · OSMAN A NEW RACE APPEARS IN HISTORY

The early European historians make the wildest statements about Osman’s field of action. Many of them call Ottomanjik, a place four days or five north-east of Eski Sheïr, his first conquest: Cuspianus (Antwerp ed., 1541), p. 6; Spandugino, in Sansovino, p. 143; Egnatius, p. 28. Cf. Hadji Khalfa, op. cit., fol. 1789. But this place was not captured by the Osmanlis until the reign of Bayezid: Evliya, op. cit., ii. 95. Paulo Giovio, an Italian historian greatly esteemed in his day, puts among the notable conquests of Osman the city and district of Sivas, as does also Rabbi Joseph, in his famous Chronicles, Eng. trans. of Biallobotzky, ii. 505. Donado da Lezze, Historia Turchesca, Rumanian edition of Ursu, pp. 4 and 5, makes him conqueror of Rum, province of Sivas, Phoenicia, ‘et altri luoghi’! Cuspianus, De Turcarum Origine, quotes Donado da Lezze almost literally. Richer, De Rebus Turcarum, written for the information of Francis I of France, says, p. 11: ‘Circiter 1300, Ottomannus impune invitis omnibus summam imperii, quod ante partitum tenebant factiosi magistratus, occupavit, seseque Asiae minoris sive Anatoliae imperatorem nominare sit aggressus. Syvam, quae eadem cum Sebaste est, expugnavit, et oppida ad Euxinum posita non pauca cepit.’ (The italics are mine.) Hussein Hezarfenn, one of the Ottoman historians whose work has been most widely read and quoted in Europe, says of Ertogrul, who never saw the sea, ‘He equipped several ships, with which he made a raid into the Aegaean Sea, pillaged the islands, descended upon Greece, penetrated up to the Peloponnesus, and returned to his home (the little village of Sugut!) laden down with wealth and followed by a great army composed of experienced warriors of all sorts of nations whom the renown of his bravery and his good fortune attracted to his service: which increased so greatly his reputation in Asia that Sultan Alaeddin even found it to his advantage to cultivate him’: trans. of Petits de la Croix, ii. 288-9.