The Turkish History Podcast The Turkish History Podcast

Following the fall of İznik, Kılıç Arslan regroups his forces, belatedly calling for aid from across Turkish Anatolia. The Crusaders depart from İznik and begin their march to the Holy Land. Kılıç Arslan springs an ambush near Eskişehir on the Plains of Dorylaeum, leading to disaster yet again. In the aftermath of the great defeat, the Sword Lion is unable to oppose the Crusaders head on, but the war continues as a wide swathe of destruction is cut across Anatolia - and the ...

The crusading army marches into a completely undefended Anatolia and right up to the walls of İznik, the capital of the Sultanate of Rum. Finally waking up to the danger, Kılıç Arslan makes a deal with the Danishmends and begins racing back West. Kılıç Arslan fights the Crusaders in front of the walls of İznik and the Turks resist. Meanwhile, as one of the greatest defeats in Turkish history unfolds, tensions continue to rise between Constantinople and the Crusading army.

The People's Crusade invades Anatolia, and the chaotic army of undisciplined peasants is easily destroyed by the forces of the Sultanate of Rum under Ilhan Bey as Kılıç Arslan besieges Malatya. But the chaos and ineptitude of the People's Crusade proves to be a boon to both the Byzantine Emperor and even the now-assembling First Crusade. In Constantinople, Emperor Alexios uses the chaos and the ineptitude of the People's Crusade to bind the arriving First Crusaders to him. A...

As Turkish power is entrenched across Anatolia and Kılıç Arslan consolidates the power of the Sultanate of Rum, in Constantinople Emperor Alexios Komnenos calls for aid from the West. The Emperor envisions a relatively large, but still manageable, army of experienced Latin knights of the type that have fought for Byzantium in the past in order to retake Anatolia. But his call for aid coincides with a papal reform movement in Rome seeking to entrench the power of the Papacy, and Po...

As Kılıç Arslan sits in prison in Esfahan, Emperor Alexios Komnenos attempts to restore imperial authority on the coasts of Anatolia, even if the plateau itself remains lost to him. Constantinople tangles with the Black Sea beylik of Karategin and the Marmara beylik of İlhan. In İzmir, the rebel Turkish Roman General Çaka Bey creates the first Turkish navy and establishes an Aegean beylik - becoming the supreme Turkish potentate in Western Anatolia. This situation is upended...

After the death of Sulayman, his sons Kılıç Arslan and Daud are imprisoned in Esfahan by Melik Shah. In their absence, the Sultanate of Rum is ruled under a quasi-regency by the man Sulayman left in charge of İznik - Ebu'l Kasım. Ebu'l Kasım fights and negotiates with the Roman Emperor and the Great Seljuk Sultan, maintaining the independence of the Sultanate - until Kılıç Arslan and Daud manage to return as Al-Dawla Al-Nizamiyya comes crashing down.