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Turks and Mongols: 1000-1517
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The first half of our own millennium is dominated, in Asia, by the movement of Turks and Mongols. Almost every part of the continent (southern India and southeast Asia are the exceptions) is invaded or occupied in this period by conquerors whose own roots lie in the steppes north of the mountain ranges.
The first is Mahmud of Ghazni who raids into India from the year 1000, beginning a long Turkish presence in the north of the subcontinent. Later in the 11th century the Seljuk Turks rule from Afghanistan west to the Mediterranean.
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In the 13th century the Mongols emerge from the steppes to seize a vast and virtually instant empire; by the time of Kublai Khan almost the whole habitable continent is theirs, except Palestine and Syria in the west and India, southeast Asia and Japan in the east. In the 15th century Timur almost repeats their great feat of conquest, but the effect is only to place his Turkish descendants on thrones previously held by Mongols - except for the imperial throne in China, by now returned to a native dynasty (the Ming).
In the 15th century a new Turkish power, that of the Ottomans, wins control of Anatolia.
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The first two decades of the 16th century bring renewed upheaval in two areas. A native ruler, the first of the Safavids, wins power in Persia. And in 1517 the Ottoman Turks extend their rule round the eastern Mediterranean and down into Egypt and Arabia.
The resulting situation remains the status quo for some time. The Ottoman empire includes the whole of southwest Asia. Persia is in Persian hands. Much of India is ruled by Muslims of Turkish origin. The steppes remain the province of Turkish and Mongol nomads, though this region and Siberia will increasingly attract Russia.
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The involvement of Europeans: 16th - 19th century
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In 1498 a Portuguese ship reaches Calicut in southern India. Its captain, Vasco da Gama, sails away again after three months. But this European visit to Asia is very different from the overland journeys made by Marco Polo and others in previous centuries. Europeans now have new maritime skills and ocean-going ships. Over the coming centuries their command of the seas will give them a massive presence in Asia.
The spice islands, dominated by the Dutch from the 17th century, are the first part of Asia to attract European attention. India, fought over by French and English in the 18th century, is the next focus of colonial attention.
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China retains a dignified isolation until brutally subdued by Britain in the two Opium Wars of the 19th century. Meanwhile China is acquiring a European neighbour to the north, with the expansion of the Russian empire to the Pacific. And the French win control of the part of southeast Asia which becomes known as Indo-China.
By the mid-19th century the European presence in Asia is so all-pervasive that wars in Afghanistan derive from imperial rivalries between Russia to the north and the British in neighbouring India. Not till the unscrambling of imperialism in the 20th century are the historic regions of Asia fully restored to Asian control. Japan, only briefly intruded upon by Europe, has been an independent exception.
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This History is as yet incomplete.
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Page 3 of 3 |
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