The Straits Question in the Policy of the Ottoman Sultan Murad II (1421-1451)

Abstract

The foreign policy of sultan Murad II aimed, by speculating the Veneto-Genoese adversity, to preserve, by means of the Ligurian Republic, his control over the port of Gallipoli, a strategic point that represented “the key of the Straits”. The Genoese support, received in difficult circumstances such as the Ottoman civil war or confrontations against anti-Ottoman coalitions, allowed sultan Murad II to keep his hand on Roumelia, to intervene firmly in Anatolia and, due to the mobility of the troops transported on Genoese vessels from the Asiatic bank of the Bosphorus to the European one, to gain the victory of Varna (November 10, 1444) and to continue his expansionist policy in the Balkans. The alternation of diplomacy and force allowed Murad II to rebuild the unity of the Ottoman Empire, to consolidate its strength in relation to the Christian powers, to extend its domination and boundaries in the Balkans and in Anatolia, where the Christian states led by local dynasts disappeared quickly following the Porte’s military campaigns.