Ottoman Interregnum Begins

1402

With Bayezid caged and the sultanate in ruins, his four sons turned on one another across a shattered Anatolia. For eleven years brother hunted brother through pine forests and Balkan passes while Byzantium, briefly, exhaled. Mehmed I would eventually win by outliving his rivals. The interregnum proved the Ottoman state could survive catastrophic defeat, rooted in institutional depth and provincial loyalty.