History of Ottoman Military roads
The Via Militaris or Via Diagonalis was an ancient Roman road, starting from Singidunum (today the Serbian capital Belgrade), and reaching Byzantium / Istanbul via Hadrianopolis / Edirne and the junction with the Via Egnatia at Heraclea / Marmara Ereğli. It was built in the 1st century AD and the length from Singidunum to Constantinople was 924 kilometres. It extended across the Bosphorus to today’s Asian Turkey and the Cilician Gates, which controlled the route to Syria; eventually it reached Damascus.
The Byzantine Empire was able to maintain the road until the 9th C, when Bulgar occupation caused its closure; during the 11th C, it was again reused by the great crusader armies, with thousands of ox-carts carrying supplies, which crossed the Balkans to Istanbul and continued towards Jerusalem. After the Crusaders captured Constantinople itself in 1204, no central authority remained which could maintain roads, so it fell out of use again.
The Ottoman armies crossed the Bosphorus in 1361 and established Edirne as their capital in 1369, later it became the forward base for military expeditions into the Balkans. Around 1568, Sultan Selim II commissioned the greatest Ottoman architect, Mimar Sinan, to build the Selimiye mosque on a hilltop site in central Edirne, forming a landmark for travellers arriving from Europe; it is contemporary with and rival to St Peter’s in Rome.
The Ottoman roads of Thrace
The Ottoman road system revolved around the former Roman roads of Thrace – the sol kol (left branch) along the Via Egnatia, the orta kol, middle branch, following the Via Militaris (the most important), and the sağ kol, following the Danube road. The Ottoman highways made connections with the Adriatic coast at Dürres (Via Egnatia), the Balkan heartlands at Belgrade (Via Militaris) and the Danube coast, to Crimea and Poland.
By the 1600’s these roads had been well-provided with bridges, kervanserays (the equivalent of the Roman mansio) and hans, which were merchant lodgings, warehouses and sales points within the cities; many remain in use today.
Each road stage on the orta kol had bridges, hans, mosques, markets, mainly designed by Mimar Sinan as part of a master plan. The Sultans Trail makers decided to follow the sağ kol from Edirne onwards; there are many Ottoman buildings along this route too. Other points of interest along the route of the Sultans Trail date from Byzantine times, when the area was contested between Byzatinum and the Bulgurs.
The Ottoman state preferred to transport goods by wheeled wagon in Thrace and the Balkans and by camel in Anatolia. The exception was that in some low-lying areas in Thrace, camels could be used in winter, when roads were too muddy for ox-carts. Military roads such as the orta kol were certainly usable by mule or horse-drawn vehicles loaded with guns or other heavy military equipment so, at the time of the expeditions towards Vienna, their condition must have been excellent.
