User blog:JonathanMarkoff/Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (for my amusement)

The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Osmanlı padişahları), sometimes referred to by foreigners as the "Grand Turk,", were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), which ruled over the transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to its dissolution in 1922. At its height, the Ottoman Empire spanned an area from Hungary in the north to Yemen in the south, and from Algeria in the west to Iraq in the east. Administered at first from the city of Bursa, the empire's capital was moved to Edirne in 1363 following its conquest by Murad I, and then to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) in 1453 following its conquest by Mehmed II.

The Ottoman Empire's early years have been the subject of varying narratives due to the difficulty of discerning fact from legend. The empire came into existence at the end of the 13th century, and its first ruler (and the namesake of the Empire) was Osman I. The eponymous Ottoman dynasty he founded endured for six centuries through the reigns of 36 sultans. The Ottoman Empire disappeared as a result of the defeat of the Central Powers, with whom it had allied itself during World War I. The partitioning of the Empire by the victorious Entente and the ensuing Turkish War of Independence led to the abolition of the sultanate in 1922 and the birth of the modern Republic of Turkey in 1922.

Harry Turtledove has fictionalized the Ottoman Sultanate in the following ways.

Southern Victory
During the 20th century, the Sultanate led the Ottoman Empire to victory among the Central Powers in the Great War and the Second Great War. However, the Sultans also enabled the brutal persecution of Armenians, which continued in the 1920s despite objections by the Empire's American and German allies.

Literary comment
Abdul Majid II is the only Sultan named in the series. Logically, his cousins Mehmed V and Mehmed VI are most likely to have been his immediate predecessors.

Other Sultans
Mehmed IV plays an important posthumous role in "The More it Changes".

An unnamed Sultan reigns in 1852 in Liberating Atlantis. There is reason to believe that this Sultan is not the historical Abdul Majid I.

An unnamed Sultan reigns in 2095 in Curious Notions.