The Ottomans take Gallipoli

The Ottomans had first come to Europe as allies of John VI Kantakouzenos. During the civil war of 1341–1347 he married his daughter Theodora to Orhan (1346) and used Ottoman troops in Thrace. When war broke out again in 1352, between his son Matthew and John V Palaiologos, Kantakouzenos brought over some 10,000 Ottoman soldiers, who in October 1352 defeated 4,000 Serbs sent to John V by Stefan Dušan near Didymoteicho — the first Ottoman victory in Europe — and around 1352 the Ottomans were granted the small fortress of Tzympe on the Gallipoli peninsula.

The earthquake of 2 March 1354 ruined hundreds of villages and towns in the region, and within a month Süleyman Pasha took over the deserted Gallipoli, fortified it and brought in Turkish families. Kantakouzenos offered money for its return, but Orhan reportedly answered that he had not taken the city by force and could not give up what had been “granted to him by Allah”. Panic spread in Constantinople, and in November 1354 Kantakouzenos was overthrown by John V and retired to a monastery. From the Gallipoli bridgehead the Ottomans overran almost all of Byzantine Thrace within ten years, including Adrianople (Edirne), which became their capital. In August 1366 the crusade of Count Amadeus VI of Savoy took Gallipoli from the Ottomans; the town stayed in Christian hands for ten years, until in the winter of 1376–1377 Andronikos IV handed it over to Murad I as payment for his support in the war against his father John V. Historians such as John Fine see the capture of 1354 as the beginning of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.