2100 YEARS OR TRIBAL INVASION
400BC TO 1700AD
(See maps below how to use and where)

THE CRUSADES
The success of the Seljuk Turks caused retaliation from Europe in form of the 1st Crusade.  A counteroffensive in 1097 by the Byzantine Emperor with aid of Western crusaders dealt the Turks a decisive defeat. Konya fell to the Crusaders.  The Turkish revival had in 1140 nullified many of the Christian gains.  But more damage was done to Byzantine rule in which the largely French contingents of the 4th Crusade and their Venetian allies intervened.  The Turks allied with Greeks in Anatolia against the Latins; Greeks allied with Turks against the Mongols.  In 1261, Palaologus of Nicacea drove the Latins from Constantinople and was able to restore the Byzantine Empire as a small Balkan state. 

Rum survived into the 13th century as a vassal of the Mongols who had already conquered the Great Seljuk Sultanate at Baghdad.  The Mongol invasion because of its tribal customs had been halted and called back and its influence in the mid-east and Europe disappeared by the 1330s leaving Gazi Amirates competing for supremacy.  From this chaos in the Middle East, a new power emerged -- that of the Ottoman Turks.