Who were the greatest Ottoman commanders?
In our ranking Mehmed II the Conqueror, who took Constantinople in 1453, is the greatest Ottoman commander, level on points with Suleiman the Magnificent and placed first as the older of the two. Hayreddin Barbarossa, Selim I and Mustafa Kemal complete the top five, and Bayezid I, Murad II and Gazi Osman Pasha are among the fifteen.
The Ottoman Empire was built by its commanders: sultans who rode at the head of their armies, grand viziers who ran their wars, and corsairs who rose to command the fleet. This list ranks fifteen of them, from Osman I, the founder whose name the empire carries, to Mustafa Kemal at Gallipoli in 1915. Sultans count only for the battles they led in person, so a ruler who left the fighting to others is scored on what he did himself. The fifteen are ranked by score for recognition, battlefield record, consequence, legacy and certainty, not by date; see how we chose them.1
1 Mehmed II the Conqueror, 1432 to 1481
- Lived
- 30 March 1432 to 3 May 1481
- Served
- Sultan 1444 to 1446 and 1451 to 1481; led his armies in person
- Greatest victory
- Constantinople, 29 May 1453
- Record
- Won Constantinople (1453) and Otlukbeli (1473); beaten at Belgrade (1456)
- Legacy
- Remembered in Turkey as Fatih, the Conqueror
According to Halil İnalcık, Mehmed II was born in Edirne on 30 March 1432, the son of Murad II, and was twelve when his father briefly stepped down in 1444 and put him on the throne. Back in power for good from 1451, he set out to take the city that split his empire in two.2
On 6 April 1453 he opened the siege of Constantinople. The Foundation of the Hellenic World puts his army at about 150,000 men and the defenders of the walls at 7,000. His guns broke the walls, and on 29 May his army stormed the city, which the Foundation describes as the new capital of the Ottoman Empire.3
In İnalcık's account he took Smederevo in Serbia in 1459 and Trebizond in 1461, and his worst check came before Belgrade in 1456: he threw himself into the fighting to stop a rout, was wounded in the forehead and had to withdraw. In the east he led his army against Uzun Hasan of the Aq Qoyunlu and crushed him at Otlukbeli on 11 August 1473; by Halil İnalcık's account Uzun Hasan fled the field alone. Turks still call him Fatih, the Conqueror, and mark 29 May as the anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul.4
Why it ranks here: No. 1 because he has full marks for recognition, consequence, legacy and certainty: the conquest of 1453 gave the empire its capital and its claim to rule a world empire. Belgrade costs him a point on battlefield record; level with Suleiman on 48 points, on recognition and on consequence, he goes first as the older man.
2 Suleiman the Magnificent, 1494 to 1566
- Lived
- 1494 to 6/7 September 1566
- Served
- Sultan 1520 to 1566; thirteen great campaigns in person, by one historian’s count
- Greatest victory
- Mohács, 29 August 1526
- Record
- Took Belgrade (1521), Rhodes (1522) and Baghdad (1534); won Mohács (1526); failed at Vienna (1529)
- Legacy
- The longest-reigning sultan; called Kanuni, the Lawgiver
By Feridun Emecen's account Suleiman was born in Trabzon in 1494 and came to the throne in 1520, and his reign of 46 years was the longest of any sultan. By Emecen's count he led thirteen great campaigns in person, and he died during the last of them, on the night of 6 to 7 September 1566, as his army besieged Szigetvár in Hungary.5
His first campaigns, as Emecen describes them, took what his great-grandfather Mehmed II had failed to take: Belgrade fell in 1521, and the Knights Hospitaller surrendered Rhodes in December 1522. On 29 August 1526 he met King Louis II of Hungary at Mohács. The Hungarians had about 25,000 men; the Ottoman regulars numbered no more than 60,000 by one Hungarian account, and other estimates run to almost 100,000. By evening the Hungarian army was gone, and the king drowned in a marsh as he fled. In 1534 he marched against Safavid Persia and, as Emecen dates it, entered Baghdad on 30 November.6
His great failure came at Vienna in 1529. The city’s own history puts his army at 150,000, 60,000 of them in the baggage train, against about 17,000 defenders; the assaults failed, and on 14 October he turned for home, beaten as much by disease and weather as by the garrison. The name Kanuni, the Lawgiver, came only after his death: Emecen finds it first in Dimitrie Cantemir's history of the 18th century, taken up by Ottoman historians in the 19th.7
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition, consequence, legacy and certainty: his campaigns carried the empire to the gates of Vienna and down the Tigris to Baghdad. Vienna costs him a point on battlefield record, and with 48 points, the same recognition and the same consequence as Mehmed II, he gives way only to the older man.
3 Hayreddin Barbarossa, about 1478 to 1546
- Lived
- About 1478 to 5 July 1546
- Served
- Corsair; ruled Algiers for the sultan from 1519; grand admiral (kapudan pasha) from 1534
- Greatest victory
- Preveza, 27 to 28 September 1538
- Record
- Won Preveza (1538); took Tunis (1534) and lost it to Charles V (1535)
- Legacy
- Turkish Naval Forces Day, 27 September, marks Preveza
Born Hızır around 1478, the son of a cavalryman who had settled on Lesbos, he made his name as a corsair beside his brother Oruç, who took Algiers around 1516 and was killed in 1518. In 1519 Hızır placed Algiers under Sultan Selim I, and on 6 April 1534 Suleiman made him kapudan pasha, grand admiral of the fleet.8
That year he seized Tunis, but Emperor Charles V besieged it from 16 June to 21 July 1535 and took it back, and Barbarossa escaped toward Algeria. His revenge came off Preveza in western Greece on 27 and 28 September 1538. With about 122 galleys he beat the larger Holy League fleet of Andrea Doria. Its size depends on the source: 208 or 246 ships for Şerafettin Turan, about 140 galleons and 168 galleys for İdris Bostan, and 262 ships in the figures cited by Anadolu Agency. For the historian İdris Bostan it was the battle in which Christian Europe lost its hold on the Mediterranean: the allied powers could not challenge the Ottomans again until Lepanto in 1571. In 1543 he took the town of Nice for the sultan’s French allies, though not its castle.9
He died on 5 July 1546 and lies in his tomb at Beşiktaş on the Bosphorus. Every 27 September, Turkish Naval Forces Day, warships sailing past salute it.10
Why it ranks here: Full marks for recognition and legacy: he is the admiral most people can name, and the Turkish navy keeps his day. Tunis costs him a point on battlefield record, Preveza’s mastery lasted only until Lepanto, so consequence is 4, and the fleet sizes are uncertain; he ties Selim I on 45 points and goes ahead on recognition.
4 Selim I the Grim, about 1470 to 1520
- Lived
- About 1470 to 21/22 September 1520
- Served
- Sultan 1512 to 1520; led his armies in person
- Greatest victory
- Chaldiran, 23 August 1514
- Record
- Won Chaldiran (1514), Marj Dabiq (1516) and Ridaniya (1517); took Tabriz but soon left it
- Legacy
- Known as Yavuz, the Stern; conqueror of the Mamluk realm
By Feridun Emecen’s account Selim forced his father Bayezid II from the throne in April 1512 and died in September 1520. Turks remember him as Yavuz, a name earned by his stern temper and daring.11
He turned first on Shah Ismail of Persia. Before the march, Mustafa Çetin Varlık writes in the TDV encyclopedia, about 40,000 of the shah’s Kızılbaş supporters in Anatolia were identified and killed; Feridun Emecen, in the same encyclopedia, calls that figure untrue and says that those punished were mostly Safavid propagandists, some of them exiled rather than executed. At Chaldiran on 23 August 1514, by Varlık’s account, Selim’s guns, chained together, and his Janissary musketeers behind a barrier of carts and camels broke the Safavid charges. Varlık puts Selim’s army at about 100,000 and the shah’s at least as large. By Varlık’s account Selim entered Tabriz on 5 September and stayed about a week; Emecen gives 6 September and nine days.12
Then he went south against the Mamluks. At Marj Dabiq on 24 August 1516, in Feridun Emecen’s account, his army, behind about 300 gun carts chained in a line, routed a Mamluk army of some 70,000 to 80,000. At Ridaniya outside Cairo he won again, on 22 January 1517 by Emecen’s dating; Emecen considers the date of 23 January found in the sources an error. Emecen writes that Selim ended the Mamluk sultanate and that in July 1517 he formally took the holy cities of Mecca and Medina under his protection. Myth vs fact: the story that he took the caliphate from the last Abbasid caliph is doubtful, Emecen writes; official documents styled him Servant of the Two Holy Cities, Mecca and Medina.13
Why it ranks here: Full marks for battlefield record, consequence and certainty: three pitched battles in three years won Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz, and both sides documented them. He is less known outside the history books than the sultans above him, so recognition and legacy are 4, and he ties Barbarossa on 45 points and falls behind on recognition.
5 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1881 to 1938
- Lived
- 1881 to 10 November 1938
- Served
- Ottoman army officer; at Gallipoli commanded the 19th Division, then the Anafarta Group (1915)
- Greatest victory
- Chunuk Bair (Conkbayırı), 10 August 1915
- Record
- Met the Anzac landing (25 April 1915); retook Chunuk Bair (10 August 1915); one front, under German command
- Legacy
- The best-known name of the empire’s last war; a memorial on Anzac Parade, Canberra
Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika in 1881. From January 1915 he commanded the new 19th Division, the main reserve of the Fifth Army on the Gallipoli peninsula.14
When the Anzacs landed on 25 April he marched for the heights without waiting for orders. His most quoted order, “I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die,” is dated differently: Anadolu Agency places it on the day of the landing, while Şerafettin Turan in the Turkish encyclopedia dates it to an order of 8 May. In the August offensive New Zealanders took the summit of Chunuk Bair on 8 August. Kemal, given command of the Anafarta Group on 8 to 9 August, launched the counterattack that drove the British battalions off the summit on the morning of 10 August; a shrapnel ball struck his chest and was stopped by his pocket watch. He quarreled with the army’s German commander, Liman von Sanders, over German officers placed at the head of Turkish units and gave up his command in September.15
Myth vs fact: the 1934 tribute to the Anzac dead, “There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets,” is carved on his memorial in Canberra, but the Australian War Memorial calls it only “often attributed” to him. After the empire’s defeat he led the Turkish national movement in the war of 1919 to 1922 and in 1923 became the first president of the Republic of Turkey.16
Why it ranks here: Scored for his Ottoman service only. Full marks for recognition, legacy and certainty: no name from the empire’s last war is better known. But he was a divisional and then group commander on one front, so battlefield record is 3, and Gallipoli decided a front rather than the war, so consequence is 4.
6 Bayezid I, about 1360 to 1403
- Lived
- About 1360 (İnalcık gives 1354, some sources earlier) to 8 March 1403, died a prisoner
- Served
- Sultan 1389 to 1402
- Greatest victory
- Nicopolis, 25 September 1396
- Record
- Won Nicopolis (1396); beaten and captured by Timur at Ankara (1402)
- Legacy
- Yıldırım, the Thunderbolt
The eldest son of Murad I, Bayezid took the throne on the field of Kosovo in June 1389, where his father was mortally wounded. He had earned the name Yıldırım, the Thunderbolt, by his dash in his father’s war against Karaman, and from 1394 he kept Constantinople under close siege.17
In 1396 crusaders under King Sigismund of Hungary besieged Nicopolis. By Halil İnalcık’s account Bayezid lifted his siege of Constantinople, marched north and on 25 September routed them. The eyewitness Johann Schiltberger writes that the Duke of Burgundy insisted on attacking first, against the king’s wish, broke through two Ottoman corps and was surrounded at the third, and he puts Sigismund’s army at sixteen thousand men. Afterward, Schiltberger writes, Bayezid had the prisoners killed “from morning until vespers”; spared because he was under twenty, Schiltberger put the dead at ten thousand.18
In 1402 he met Timur outside Ankara, on 28 July. Groups of Tatars and Turcomans on his flanks deserted to Timur, his horse stumbled as he tried to break out late in the evening, and he was taken; he died a prisoner on 8 March 1403, by İnalcık’s dating. Myth vs fact: the tale that Timur carried him about in an iron cage has been argued over by scholars for centuries, and a 2023 study suggests it grew from a Western churchman’s book of the early 1400s and spread through Renaissance humanists.19
Why it ranks here: Nicopolis and the long hold on Constantinople give him strong marks for recognition, consequence and legacy, but Ankara cost him his army and his freedom, so battlefield record is 3, and army sizes in both battles are guesses, so certainty is 3. He ties Murad II on 37 points and goes ahead on recognition.
7 Murad II, 1404 to 1451
- Lived
- June 1404 to 3 February 1451
- Served
- Sultan from 1421; stepped down in 1444 and ruled again from 1446 to 1451
- Greatest victory
- Varna, 10 November 1444
- Record
- Won Varna (1444) and Kosovo (1448); failed before Constantinople (1422), Belgrade (1440) and Krujë (1450)
- Legacy
- Ended Hungary’s reach into the Balkans and opened the way to 1453
Murad II was born in Amasya in 1404 and became sultan in 1421. His sieges of Constantinople in 1422 and Belgrade in 1440 failed, according to Halil İnalcık. In 1444, after John Hunyadi’s campaign had reached the Balkan passes, he handed the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed.20
Then the young Władysław III, king of Poland and Hungary, broke a freshly sworn truce and marched for the Black Sea. Murad came back, had about 40,000 men carried across the straits on Genoese ships and caught the crusaders near Varna. The historian Karol Olejnik puts the Christians at just under 20,000 and the Ottomans at about 50,000 to 55,000. On 10 November the crusaders broke both Ottoman wings, but when Władysław charged the Janissaries around him with about 500 horsemen, the king fell and was beheaded. Myth vs fact: the tale that the sultan held the broken treaty aloft on a spear is local lore; Olejnik’s sources have him tell the Christian fleet that he was marching against an oath-breaking king.21
On 17 October 1448 he met Hunyadi on the field of Kosovo with about 50,000 men at the most generous estimate against 30,000 to 35,000 Hungarians and some 8,000 Wallachians; after three days, Feridun Emecen writes, nothing was left of the Hungarian army. His last siege, of Krujë in Albania in 1450, was lifted, and he died in Edirne in February 1451.22
Why it ranks here: Full marks for battlefield record: two crushing field victories in four years outweigh his failed sieges. But outside the Balkans and Poland few readers know his name, so recognition and legacy are 3; he ties Bayezid I on 37 points and falls behind on recognition.
8 Gazi Osman Pasha, 1833 to 1900
- Lived
- 1833 to 5 April 1900
- Served
- Ottoman officer from 1853; marshal from 1876
- Greatest victory
- Plevna, 11 September 1877
- Record
- Threw back three assaults on Plevna (July to September 1877); surrendered on 10 December 1877
- Legacy
- The title Gazi, the Victorious; the Plevna March
Born Osman Nuri in Tokat, he left the military academy in 1853, fought in the Crimean War, served in Crete and Yemen, and was made a marshal in 1876 after beating Serbian forces near Vidin.23
When the Russians crossed the Danube in 1877, Metin Hülagü writes, he marched his corps from Vidin to Plevna, arriving on 7 July with about 25,000 men, and dug in. In Hülagü’s account the first Russian assault, on 8 July, left about 3,000 Russians dead; in the second, on 18 July, some 60,000 Russians were thrown back by 33,000 Ottomans, whose modern Martini-Henry rifles Hülagü counts among the reasons for the victory. The third, on 11 September, came from an army that with its Romanian allies now passed 100,000 men; it failed too, with Russian losses of 15,550 by Hülagü’s count, and the sultan gave Osman the title Gazi.24
The Russians then besieged the town, and, Hülagü writes, its defenders ran short of food and ammunition. On 10 December Osman tried to break out across the Vit with an army that Hülagü puts at 40,000 men, was wounded by a shell fragment and surrendered. The fall of Plevna, Hülagü writes, opened the road to Istanbul for the Russians. The Plevna March, whose words Turks still know, keeps the defense alive; Küre Ansiklopedi says it is still played in Turkish military music.25
Why it ranks here: Full marks for certainty and strong marks for battlefield record and legacy: the defense of Plevna held a far larger army for five months and is still sung about. But he surrendered and the war was lost, so consequence is 3, and outside Turkey and the Balkans few readers know him, so recognition is 3.
9 Turgut Reis (Dragut), about 1485 to 1565
- Lived
- About 1485 (1487 by İdris Bostan’s estimate) to 23 June 1565
- Served
- Corsair captain under Barbarossa; beylerbey (governor) of Tripoli from 1556
- Greatest victory
- Tripoli, taken from the Knights of St John on 15 August 1551
- Record
- Won at Tripoli in 1551 and Bastia in 1553 and shared the siege of Djerba in 1560; captured in 1540; mortally wounded at Malta in 1565
- Legacy
- Called “the Sword of Islam” in the Muslim world; buried beside the mosque he built in Tripoli
The son of a farmer from Menteşe in southwest Anatolia, Turgut went to sea young, sailed with the Barbarossa brothers and fought at Preveza in 1538 as a volunteer corsair captain with his own ship; Europeans called him Dragut. In 1540 Giannettino Doria caught him off Corsica, and he spent three to four years as a Genoese prisoner (according to EBSCO’s John W. Barker, as a galley slave) until Barbarossa forced his release.26
His great prize was Tripoli. On 15 August 1551 the fleet of Sinan Pasha, guided by Turgut, took it from the Knights of St John; Turgut became its beylerbey in 1556. In August 1553 he beat a Genoese relief army of 4,000 horse and 3,000 foot outside Bastia in Corsica. Myth vs fact: he is often given the sea victory off Djerba in 1560, but İdris Bostan’s account, drawn from Ottoman records, shows that Piyale Pasha’s fleet won it on 11 to 14 May; Turgut joined on 16 May and shared the two-month siege that took the island’s fort on 30 July.27
At Malta in 1565 he thought it a mistake to begin with Fort St Elmo but fought there anyway; a stone splinter hit his head on 18 June, and he died on 23 June, the day the fort fell.28
Why it ranks here: Legacy and certainty of 4 and a battlefield record of 4: he took Tripoli and joined Piyale’s Djerba campaign in time for the siege, but his capture by the Genoese in 1540 and his death at Malta count against him. Recognition and consequence of 3 leave him one point behind Gazi Osman Pasha.
10 Osman I, about 1258 to 1324
- Lived
- About 1258 to 1323 or 1324
- Served
- Bey (chief) of a small frontier principality in Bithynia, northwest Anatolia
- Greatest victory
- Bapheus, 27 July 1302, over a Byzantine relief force
- Record
- Won at Bapheus in 1302 (about 5,000 against 2,000, by a Byzantine count); besieged Nicaea and Bursa without taking either
- Legacy
- The dynasty and the empire are named after him
In Halil İnalcık’s account Osman was a Turkish frontier warrior raiding Byzantine Bithynia around 1300. İnalcık dates his death to 1324 and, from the Ottoman tradition that he died at 69 in lunar years, puts his birth in 1257. İnalcık calls the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres, his contemporary, the most reliable source on him; the earliest Ottoman accounts of his ancestry, such as Yazıcıoğlu Ali’s, were written in the fifteenth century.29
His best-documented battle, and the one a contemporary described in detail, is Bapheus. While Osman was blockading Nicaea (İznik), a Byzantine relief force under Leo Mouzalon marched against him, and on 27 July 1302, the date given by the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres, Osman routed it near the Gulf of Nicomedia (İzmit); Pachymeres puts the Byzantines at about 2,000 and the Turks at 5,000. The historian Halil İnalcık argued that this day, rather than the traditional 1299, marks the founding of the Ottoman state. By the Ottoman tradition İnalcık reports, his son Orhan was besieging Bursa when Osman died.30
Why it ranks here: The founder whose name the empire carries scores 4 for recognition, consequence and legacy, but Bapheus, his one battle described in detail by a contemporary, the Byzantine historian Pachymeres, gives a battlefield record of 2, and certainty is only 2 because the rest of his story was written down long after him. His 34 points put him one above Kara Mustafa Pasha.
11 Kara Mustafa Pasha, 1634 to 1683
- Lived
- 1634 or 1635 to 25 December 1683
- Served
- Grand admiral in the 1660s; grand vizier of Mehmed IV from November 1676
- Greatest victory
- Chyhyryn, taken from its Russian and Cossack garrison on 21 August 1678
- Record
- Received the surrender of Uman in 1674 and took Chyhyryn in 1678; routed at Vienna on 12 September 1683
- Legacy
- Remembered as the vizier who lost Vienna; the war he began ended with Hungary lost at Karlowitz in 1699
Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa, “Black Mustafa,” was born in 1634 or 1635, the son of a cavalryman, and raised in the household of Grand Vizier Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. He served as grand admiral and deputy to Köprülü’s son Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, fought at Kamieniec in 1672, negotiated the Treaty of Buczacz and became grand vizier in November 1676. His first campaign in command took Chyhyryn, the Cossack capital, on 21 August 1678 after a month-long siege.31
In 1683 he led the army west, and at Székesfehérvár the target became Vienna rather than Győr, a choice that surprised even Sultan Mehmed IV. About 120,000 men besieged the city from 14 July, without heavy siege guns. On 12 September a relief army of about 65,000 under King John III Sobieski came down from the Kahlenberg; by the Ottoman account the wing of Uzun İbrahim Pasha broke first, and he held the center for five or six hours before he withdrew with the Prophet’s banner. Wojciech Kalwat of the Wilanów Palace Museum puts the Ottoman losses at almost 15,000 men. Rivals at court turned the sultan against him, and on 25 December 1683 he was strangled at Belgrade. The war ended at Karlowitz in 1699 with Hungary in Austrian hands.32
Myth vs fact: the skull Vienna kept for centuries as his came from his Belgrade grave in 1688, but Ottoman chroniclers say his head was buried in Edirne or Istanbul.33
Why it ranks here: Recognition of 4, since every account of Vienna names him, and certainty of 5; but Chyhyryn is his only victory to set against the rout of 1683, so record 2. With 33 points he stands one below Osman I.
12 Murad I, about 1326 to 1389
- Lived
- About 1326 to 1389
- Served
- Commander in Thrace as a prince from 1357; ruler from 1362
- Greatest victory
- Kosovo, 1389, a victory he did not live to see
- Record
- Took Edirne as a prince in 1361, beat the Karamanids at Frenkyazı in 1386 and was killed at Kosovo in 1389; the Maritsa (1371) was won by his commanders
- Legacy
- Made the Byzantine emperor his vassal; his death at Kosovo lives on in Serbian epic
By Halil İnalcık’s account Murad, a son of Orhan, was sent across the Dardanelles in 1357 with his tutor Lala Şahin and campaigned in Thrace as a prince until 1362, when he took the throne; Edirne (Adrianople) surrendered to his army in 1361.34
In İnalcık’s account the great victory on the Maritsa on 26 September 1371, which broke the Serbian lords of Macedonia, was won by his frontier commanders in a night attack while Murad was besieging Biga in Anatolia. Soon afterward the Byzantine emperor agreed to pay him tribute and to serve in his campaigns as a vassal. Murad fought his own battles too: at Frenkyazı in 1386 he beat the army of Karaman and besieged Konya. At Kosovo, against Prince Lazar of Serbia, on 15 June 1389, the date Western sources give (Feridun Emecen notes that it may be 28 June if that date is Old Style), his left wing gave way and his son Bayezid won the battle on the right; Murad was stabbed to death, by the Ottoman account by a Serb hiding among the bodies, and Lazar was captured and killed.35
Myth vs fact: in Serbian epic the knight Miloš Obilić killed the sultan in a planned strike, a tale the Turkish historian Feridun Emecen calls far from credible; early reports even disagreed on who had won.36
Why it ranks here: Consequence of 4: he turned a frontier state into a Balkan power and made the Byzantine emperor his vassal. His record stays at 3 and certainty at 2 because his commanders won the Maritsa and Kosovo rests on late, legendary sources. He ties Pargalı İbrahim Pasha on 31 points and recognition and stays ahead on consequence.
13 Pargalı İbrahim Pasha, about 1495 to 1536
- Lived
- About 1495 to March 1536
- Served
- Grand vizier of Suleiman the Magnificent, 1523 to 1536; serasker (commander in chief) in the field
- Greatest victory
- Mohács, 29 August 1526, at the head of the Rumelian corps
- Record
- Took Petrovaradin and Ilok and led the vanguard at Mohács in 1526; directed the failed siege of Vienna in 1529; entered Tabriz unopposed in 1534
- Legacy
- Strangled on Suleiman’s orders; the subject of plays, novels and a television drama
Probably born near Parga on the Ionian coast and brought to the court as a captive, İbrahim served Prince Suleiman at Manisa and became his closest friend. In June 1523 Suleiman made him grand vizier straight from a household post, against all custom.37
In 1526 he led the vanguard: with the Rumelian army and Janissaries he secured the crossing of the Sava, took Petrovaradin after a two-week siege and then Ilok. On 29 August at Mohács his Rumelian corps came down from the terrace first; the Hungarian charge was stopped by the volleys of the Janissaries guarding its guns, and the royal army was destroyed. As serasker he directed the siege of Vienna in 1529, which failed, and in 1534 he marched ahead of the sultan against Persia and entered Tabriz on 6 August without a battle; Baghdad fell before the year was out. His power ended overnight: on the night of 14 to 15 March 1536 he was strangled in the palace on the sultan’s orders, with no reason given, Emecen notes, though his use of the title serasker sultan had turned the court against him.38
His rise and fall fed European plays and a four-volume novel by Madeleine de Scudéry in 1641, and today Magnificent Century, a Turkish drama about Suleiman’s court broadcast in 54 countries, tells it again with İbrahim as the sultan’s closest friend.39
Why it ranks here: He ran the sultan’s campaigns but did not command them alone, so record and consequence are 3, and television has made him better known than his victories. He ties Murad I on 31 points and recognition and falls behind on consequence.
14 Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, about 1505 to 1579
- Lived
- 1505 to 12 October 1579
- Served
- Grand admiral from 1546; governor of Rumelia from 1549; grand vizier to three sultans, 1565 to 1579
- Greatest victory
- Szigetvár, 1566, a siege he ran while Suleiman lay dying
- Record
- Took Lipova and other Banat forts in 1551 but failed before Timişoara; helped Prince Selim win at Konya in 1559; took Szigetvár in 1566
- Legacy
- The Drina bridge at Višegrad he commissioned is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Born in the Bosnian village of Sokolovići in 1505 and christened Bajica, he was taken to the palace in the devşirme, the levy of Christian boys, rose through the household and succeeded Barbarossa as grand admiral in 1546.40
His one independent campaign came in 1551, when as governor of Rumelia he crossed into the Banat and took Becse, Becskerek, Csanád and Lipova, but had to lift the siege of Timişoara in November, and Lipova was lost again that winter. In 1559 he led the troops sent to Prince Selim at Konya and had a large part in Selim’s victory over his brother Bayezid. Grand vizier from June 1565, he ran the siege of Szigetvár from 7 August 1566 and spent nights in the trenches; when Suleiman died in the night of 6 to 7 September, with the fortress about to fall, he kept the death secret for three weeks until the heir, Selim II, could take over. After Lepanto he had a new fleet built in a single winter. According to his Turkish biographer Erhan Afyoncu, he also backed the election of Henry of Valois and then of Stefan Batory to the Polish throne. On 12 October 1579 a dervish posing as a petitioner stabbed him to death.41
His best-known monument is the bridge over the Drina at Višegrad, built at his order and listed by UNESCO in 2007.42
Why it ranks here: Perhaps the most powerful grand vizier the empire had, with certainty of 5, but he organized wars more than he fought them, and his own campaign stalled before Timişoara, so record 2. He ties Lala Mustafa Pasha on 30 points and goes ahead on recognition.
15 Lala Mustafa Pasha, about 1500 to 1580
- Lived
- About 1500 to 7 August 1580
- Served
- Tutor (lala) of Prince Selim from 1557; governor in the east; vizier and commander in Cyprus (1570 to 1571) and the Caucasus (1578)
- Greatest victory
- Cyprus: Nicosia taken on 9 September 1570, Famagusta on 1 August 1571
- Record
- Took Nicosia and Famagusta; beat the Safavid vanguard at Çıldır in 1578 and took Tiflis and Shirvan
- Legacy
- Remembered in Europe for the flaying of Bragadin at Famagusta
A Bosnian who rose in palace service, he became lala, tutor, to Prince Selim in 1557 and took Selim’s side in the war of succession against his brother Bayezid. When Selim II, now sultan, wanted Venetian Cyprus, Lala Mustafa backed the war against the advice of Grand Vizier Sokollu and was given the command.43
The army landed in July 1570, and Nicosia fell to the final assault on 9 September after a 45-day siege. Famagusta, invested on 17 September, held out under Marcantonio Bragadin through months of bombardment and agreed to surrender on 1 August 1571, before the Ottoman defeat at Lepanto. The terms let the garrison leave, but at the surrender meeting, in John W. Barker’s account, Lala Mustafa flew into a rage and had the Venetian leaders seized and killed; Bragadin was flayed alive about two weeks later, and his skin lies today in the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Venice.44
In 1578, as sole commander against Safavid Persia, he beat the Safavid vanguard at Çıldır on 9 August, entered Tiflis and conquered Shirvan, and in 1579 rebuilt the fortress of Kars. His rival Koca Sinan Pasha had him recalled, and he died on 7 August 1580, past seventy.45
Why it ranks here: Record and consequence of 4: he won Cyprus and opened the Caucasus campaign of 1578. Recognition and legacy are only 2, because abroad he is remembered mainly for Bragadin’s death; he ties Sokollu Mehmed Pasha on 30 points and falls behind on recognition.
How we chose and ranked these Ottoman commanders
We counted a commander as anyone who led an Ottoman army or fleet in person: generals and grand viziers in the field, admirals at sea, and sultans for the battles they commanded themselves, not for wars fought in their name. The battles themselves are ranked in our guide to the greatest battles of the Ottoman Empire, the generals of Byzantium in the greatest Byzantine commanders, and the best of every nation in the greatest military commanders.
We considered 25 candidates and scored each one from 1 to 5 on five criteria. Recognition counts three times, because this page answers the question of who the greatest Ottoman commanders were; battlefield record, consequence and legacy count twice, and certainty once:
- Recognition (×3). 5 if the commander is known far beyond military history and appears on most published lists of Ottoman commanders or sultans, 1 if only specialists know the name.
- Battlefield record (×2). 5 if he won several decisive victories in person, some against the odds, with no defeat to match, 1 if he is known for no victory of his own or for a disaster.
- Consequence (×2). 5 if his victories changed states, wars or borders for centuries, 1 if they changed nothing lasting.
- Legacy (×2). 5 if he is studied, imitated and remembered today (national memory, monuments, ships, film and television), 1 if he is forgotten.
- Certainty (×1). 5 if his campaigns are documented by independent sources on both sides, 1 if they rest on chronicles written long after or on legend.
The list is ranked by total score, not by date. Ties go to the better-known commander, then to the one whose victories changed more, then to the older one. The scores are our editorial judgment, made on the evidence in the sources below, and the table shows every one of them. It explains, for example, why Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, perhaps the most powerful grand vizier the empire had, is only fourteenth: he ran the wars of three sultans from Istanbul, but won little in the field himself.
| Rank | Name | Recognition ×3 | Battlefield record ×2 | Consequence ×2 | Legacy ×2 | Certainty ×1 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mehmed II the Conqueror | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 48 |
| 2 | Suleiman the Magnificent | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 48 |
| 3 | Hayreddin Barbarossa | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 45 |
| 4 | Selim I the Grim | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 45 |
| 5 | Mustafa Kemal Atatürk | 5 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 44 |
| 6 | Bayezid I | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 37 |
| 7 | Murad II | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 37 |
| 8 | Gazi Osman Pasha | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 36 |
| 9 | Turgut Reis (Dragut) | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 35 |
| 10 | Osman I | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 34 |
| 11 | Kara Mustafa Pasha | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 33 |
| 12 | Murad I | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 31 |
| 13 | Pargalı İbrahim Pasha | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 31 |
| 14 | Sokollu Mehmed Pasha | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 5 | 30 |
| 15 | Lala Mustafa Pasha | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 30 |
Close calls
Five commanders came close and did not make the fifteen:
Kemal Reis, about 1451 to 1510. The uncle of the mapmaker Piri Reis commanded Bayezid II’s fleet in the first great Ottoman sea battles against Venice: off Sapienza (Zonchio) in 1499, where Burak Reis set Venetian ships on fire, and in the campaign that took Modon in 1500. He drowned when his ship sank in a storm in 1510. Few outside naval history know him.46
Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, 1635 to 1676. Grand vizier from 1661, at about 26, he took Uyvar (Nové Zámky) in 1663, ended the war for Crete with the surrender of Candia in 1669 and took Kamieniec on 27 August 1672, winning Podolia at Buczacz. Most of his gains were sieges, he was beaten at Saint Gotthard in 1664, and only specialists know him.47
Uluç Ali, about 1519 to 1587. A Calabrian captive turned corsair, he commanded the Ottoman left at Lepanto in 1571 and brought out about 30 ships, the only squadron saved. Renamed Kılıç, the Sword, and made grand admiral, he had a new fleet at sea by June 1572 and was its admiral when Tunis was retaken in 1574. Outside Lepanto he is little known.48
Evrenos Bey, died 1417. A frontier lord who served from Orhan to Mehmed I, he led the western raiding wing that took Serres, Kavala, Drama and much of Macedonia and raided Thessaly and the Morea. He died at Yenice-i Vardar (Giannitsa) in 1417, where his tomb stands. His deeds rest on later chronicles, and only specialists know him.49
Piyale Pasha, about 1515 to 1578. Son of a Croatian shoemaker, captured at Mohács, he commanded the fleet that beat the Spanish-led armada off Djerba on 11 to 14 May 1560, taking 19 galleys, and ended Genoese rule on Chios in 1566. But he shares Djerba with Turgut, his fleet carried the army that failed at Malta in 1565, and few remember him.50
Who was the greatest Ottoman sultan?
Historians name no single winner, and in our ranking the two usual favorites tie: Mehmed II and Suleiman the Magnificent both score 48 points, and Mehmed goes first only as the older man. Mehmed took Constantinople in 1453 and made it his capital. Suleiman reigned for 46 years, by Feridun Emecen’s account longer than any other sultan, and his campaigns took Belgrade, Rhodes and Baghdad and broke the Hungarian army at Mohács.51
The verdict depends on what is measured. For speed it is Selim I, who reigned from 1512 to 1520 and in that time beat the Safavids at Chaldiran and, as Feridun Emecen puts it, put an end to the Mamluk sultanate. Bayezid I has the most mixed record: the victor of Nicopolis ended his reign as Timur's prisoner and died in captivity in 1403. In later centuries the armies often marched under grand viziers rather than the sultan himself, as Vienna showed in 1683.52
Who was the first Ottoman sultan?
Osman I, who died in 1324 by Halil İnalcık’s dating, is counted as the first sultan, but in his lifetime he was a bey, the chief of a small frontier principality in Bithynia. The coin cabinet of the Berlin State Museums calls his son Orhan the first Ottoman sultan to bear the title. The fair answer has two parts: Osman founded the line, and Orhan, by that account, was the first to be called sultan.53
Walk their battles in the greatest battles of the Ottoman Empire, or measure them against the world's best in the greatest military commanders.
